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Amanda King is a divorced housewife who lives with her mother, Dotty, and her young sons, Philip and Jamie. One morning, Agency operative Lee Stetson, code-named "Scarecrow", hands her a package while he is being pursued. He instructs her to "give it to the man in the red hat", but she is unable to complete the assignment, as there are many men in fezzes in the train car at the time. Scarecrow later has to track her down to recover the package, inadvertently getting her involved with his case. When Stetson is captured by his pursuers and marked for elimination, King ends up solving the secret behind the package, finding and rescuing Stetson, and even taking down their opponents, thereby getting introduced to the Agency. Inquisitive, King seeks to learn more about the organization and ends up working for them, first in an office role and later receiving training to become a full agent, while keeping her new job a secret from her family. She works under Stetson's boss, Billy Melrose, and with dismissive fellow agent Francine Desmond. Stetson and King work together even though he is initially reluctant to work with the "rookie" but eventually they become a good team. The pair travel to places like Germany and England and help each other as they pose as other people, sometimes posing as husband and wife. Escapades involving cruise ships and getting "married" are some of their assignments, and the KGB or other enemies of the United States are always involved. Amanda's ex-husband, Joe King, is still friendly with Amanda and is later suspected of murder. Stetson and King develop a friendship that turns into a romantic relationship. While many suitors for King and Stetson appear, in the end they stay with each other. Stetson professes his love for King before going into hiding from the Agency, and he then proposes after her kidnapping. However, because of concerns for the safety of King's family, they must keep the marriage secret from their employer, friends, and families. 

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Harriet (Lady Peter Wimsey) has evacuated her family to the Wimseys' country house, Talboys in Hertfordshire, taking her two children, along with the three children of her sister-in-law, Lady Mary, and Peter's venerable old housekeeper, Mrs Trapp. Peter and Bunter are away on an undercover assignment. During an ARP drill, a young woman is murdered in the village, and Superintendent Kirk (who last appeared in Busman's Honeymoon) recruits Harriet to help solve the murder, as the police are short-staffed due to the war and Harriet, as a crime novelist and the wife of a detective, is felt to be the best-qualified available person to find the murderer. The murdered girl, Wendy Percival, had come from the city as a Land Girl, to do agricultural work and help the war effort. She was killed in the village street while most people were in the village's two air raid shelters during the drill, and much of the investigation turns on who had been, or could have been, outside the shelters when the murder was committed. Patient investigation leads Harriet to eliminate several potential suspects, including two young men in the village with whom Wendy flirted and the RAF pilot who was last with her on the night she died. She also establishes that everyone in the shelters is accounted for, and that there was no way for anyone to leave either shelter unnoticed during the drill. Glumly, she reflects that her list of possible suspects has been reduced to a random "wandering maniac". Returning home from one of her investigations, Harriet encounters "Bungo", Peter's old school friend and now a high-ranking officer in British Intelligence, who has received a coded message from Peter which Peter had said only she could decipher. The message is based on a book code, and after thinking carefully she realises that the key to the code is the sonnet which she started and Peter completed in Gaudy Night. The decoded message says that Peter and Bunter have accomplished their mission, but their danger is now great and they must come home separately. They require assistance to get home, and the message says which routes they will be taking. By solving the cipher, Harriet has saved Peter's life, just as he once saved her life. The message also instructs Harriet, in the event of his death, to read the letter he left for her in his bureau. Handling the unopened letter, Harriet reflects ruefully on the years she spent avoiding Peter's proposals of marriage, when all she wants now is to be with him again. Then she realises that she married him when the time was right for her, and that to have "settled" on the wrong terms would have been disastrous for both of them. 

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Following a global war and the collapse of civilization after the Earth's oil supplies were nearly exhausted, barbaric anarchy has become the world's everyday law. Haunted by the death of his family, former policeman Max Rockatansky now roams the desert wilderness of a post-apocalyptic Australia in a scarred, black, supercharged V-8 Pursuit Special. Scavenging for food and petrol, Max's only companions are an Australian Cattle Dog and a sawn-off shotgun with scarce ammunition. After driving off a gang led by the unhinged biker warrior Wez, and taking petrol from one of their wrecked vehicles, Max finds a nearby gyrocopter and decides to collect its fuel. The gyrocopter is boobytrapped, but Max overpowers the pilot hiding nearby, sparing his life upon being told of a small oil refinery nearby in the wasteland. However, upon arriving, Max finds the compound under siege by the Marauders, a motley gang of racers and motorcyclists of which Wez is a member. The Marauders' leader, a large disfigured man called "Lord Humungus", has his gang swarm the complex daily, believing that the compound contains some kind of petrol reserves or even a small refinery. Biding his time, Max makes his move when a group of settlers attempt to break out of the compound to find a means to take the fuel tank out of the complex. With the others captured and subjected to torture, rape and death, Max rescues the remaining survivor and offers to get him back to the complex in return for a tank of petrol. The man dies shortly from his wound after Max returns him, and the settlers' leader Papagallo reneges on the deal. The settlers are on the verge of killing Max when the Marauders return and, despite the death of Wez's partner by the metal boomerang of a feral child living within the complex, Humungus offers the settlers safe passage from the territory in exchange for the fuel supply. Max offers another deal to Papagallo: he will procure a semi- truck for the settlers to haul their tanker if they give Max his freedom and as much fuel as he can carry. The settlers accept, but keep his car until he returns. That night, Max sneaks out on foot with the Feral Kid's help. He again encounters the Gyro Captain and forces him to help make the journey to the truck, a Mack semi which Max discovered after his initial encounter with Wez. With aerial support, Max drives the semi through the Marauders' encampment into the compound with a livid Humungus reinitiating the siege. Though the settlers want Max to escape with them to a beach, Max opts to collect his petrol and leave. However, while attempting to break through the siege, Max is seriously wounded and his car wrecked after being run off the road by Wez in Lord Humungus's nitrous oxide-equipped car. One of the Marauders kills Max's dog with a crossbow before Toady's attempt to siphon the fuel from the Pursuit Special's tanks triggers the car's self-destruct, which kills both Marauders during the explosion. Max is left for dead, but the Gyro Captain rescues him and flies him back to the compound. Despite his injuries, Max insists on driving the repaired and now armored truck with the fuel tanker. He leaves the compound, accompanied by the Feral Kid with Papagallo and several of the settlers in armored vehicles to provide protection. Lord Humungus and most of his warriors pursue the tanker, leaving the remaining settlers free to flee the compound in a ramshackle caravan, rigging the compound to explode. After Papagallo and the defenders are killed during the chase, and the Gyro Captain shot down, Max and the Feral Kid find themselves alone against the Marauders as Wez boards the truck to kill the two of them. However, the semi's head-on collision with Humungus' car kills both him and Wez as the out-of-control truck rolls off the road while the surviving Marauders leave. As the injured Max carries the Feral Kid from the wrecked tanker, he sees not oil, but sand, leaking from the tank, revealing it to be a decoy which allowed the other settlers to escape with the fuel in oil drums hidden inside their vehicles. With Papagallo dead, the Gyro Captain succeeds him as their chief and leads the settlers to the coast, where they establish the "Great Northern Tribe". The Feral Kid (as an adult and the Northern Tribe's new leader) is revealed as the film's narrator, reminiscing about the Road Warrior, who departed for parts unknown, and now lives on only in legend. 

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The book chronicles the rise to fame of one Montgomery Marvin, a professor of economics who, as an academic teacher, keeps a low profile but who nevertheless is given tenure quite early in his career. While outwardly concerning himself with unspectacular research focusing on "Mathematical Paradigms in an Approach to Refrigerator Pricing" (which is also the title of his Ph.D. thesis), Marvin's extracurricular activities centre on becoming very rich in a very short time. For that purpose, Marvin has devised a new formula—a stock forecasting model by means of which he and his wife can cash in on people's euphoria, greed and, as they call it, dementia. Eventually, while everyone loses money in the wake of the "Black Monday" stock market crash of October 19, 1987, the Marvins gain an awful lot. (See also Michael Milken and leveraged buyout.) They decide to spend their money wisely, according to their liberal agenda. Intent on strictly observing the code of business ethics, they start to make use of the "positive power of wealth" and embark on a life of philanthropy. They fund a number of chairs in peace studies to be established at, of all places, military academies. They also secure legislation by which companies are required to label their products according to the percentage of female executives employed by them. After they have launched several of their projects, their operations are increasingly considered un-American and officially put under surveillance. But whatever will happen - Marvin knows that he will be able to nourish his family, as he has been accorded tenure. A Tenured Professor was republished as paperback by Houghton Mifflin in 2001 (). 

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Merlin has spent the last several years on Earth learning computer science while building Ghostwheel, a trump- and pattern-based computer, elsewhere in Shadow. Having completed his project, he wishes to know who has been trying to kill him every April 30, and why some of the better attempts failed, before he leaves. He meets with his friend Lucas Reynard (Luke), a salesman, who tries to convince him to stay, and who tells him that Julia Barnes, Merlin's ex-girlfriend, may be in trouble. Merlin investigates and finds Julia slain by creatures from another shadow. Merlin investigates through shadow, and is given orders by king Random to shut down Ghostwheel. However, Ghostwheel has become sentient and capable of defending itself. Eventually, Luke - who, it turns out, is Brand's son - imprisons Merlin in a blue crystal cave so he can attempt to take control of Ghostwheel for himself. 

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A piece from a series of brush paintings by Qing dynasty artist Sun Wen (1818–1904), depicting a scene from the novel. The novel provides a detailed, episodic record of life in the two branches of the wealthy, aristocratic Jia (賈) clan—the Rongguo House (榮國府) and the Ningguo House (寧國府)—who reside in two large, adjacent family compounds in the capital. Their ancestors were made Dukes and given imperial titles, and as the novel begins the two houses are among the most illustrious families in the city. One of the clan's offspring is made a Royal Consort, and a lush landscaped garden is built to receive her visit. The novel describes the Jias' wealth and influence in great naturalistic detail, and charts the Jias' fall from the height of their prestige, following some thirty main characters and over four hundred minor ones. Eventually the Jia clan falls into disfavor with the Emperor, and their mansions are raided and confiscated. In the novel's frame story, a sentient Stone, abandoned by the goddess Nüwa when she mended the heavens aeons ago, begs a Taoist priest and a Buddhist monk to take it with them to see the world. The Stone, along with a companion (in Cheng-Gao versions they are merged into the same character), is then given a chance to learn from the human existence, and enters the mortal realm. The main character of the novel is the carefree adolescent male heir of the family, Jia Baoyu. He was born with a magical piece of "jade" in his mouth. In this life he has a special bond with his sickly cousin Lin Daiyu, who shares his love of music and poetry. Baoyu, however, is predestined to marry another cousin, Xue Baochai, whose grace and intelligence exemplify an ideal woman, but with whom he lacks an emotional connection. The romantic rivalry and friendship among the three characters against the backdrop of the family's declining fortunes form the main story in the novel. 

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After the 1933 death of Addison Mizner, people who knew him, including his estranged lover Hollis Bessemer, comment on his life and the way he squandered his talents ("Waste"). Addison's younger brother Wilson appears and speaks to Addison, who angrily claims that Wilson was the cause of all his failures. The time shifts to Papa Mizner's death in California at the beginning of the twentieth century. On his deathbed, Papa charges his sons with the task of using their gifts to shape America ("It's In Your Hands Now"), telling them that there's a "road" to follow. Mama Mizner reveals the family's wealth has been eaten away by Papa's long illness and advises the boys to seek gold in Alaska; Addison is reluctant, but goes along with Wilson anyway ("Gold!"). In the Klondike, the brothers share a sleeping bag and reminisce about their childhood ("Brotherly Love"). Wilson leaves to get supplies while Addison works the claim. Wilson is lured into a game of poker. Addison is shocked to discover his brother gambling. Wilson explains his newfound love of taking risks regardless of what's at stake ("The Game"). Wilson stakes their gold claim in a poker game and wins the saloon in which the game is taking place. (This episode is fictitious.) A shade of Papa Mizner appears and tells Addison that this was not what he had in mind for his sons. Addison leaves in disgust with his share of Wilson's winnings and travels around the world searching for business opportunities and a sense of purpose ("Addison's Trip"). All of his ventures fail due to bad luck. He is left with nothing but souvenirs that inspire him to take up architecture (so he can design a house in which to show them off). Wilson's businesses in Alaska also have failed, so he comes south to seek his brother's help. Wilson seduces and marries Addison's first client, a rich widow, and fritters away her money on various flashy endeavours, including fixed boxing matches and horse races ("That Was A Year"). Although Wilson's various partners lose money, they remain fond of him because of the verve and energy with which he lives. Even Mama Mizner, who is being looked after by Addison and never receives any visits from Wilson, enjoys reading about Wilson's exploits, saying that she can live through him ("Isn't He Something!"). Only Addison remains uncharmed by Wilson, and when Wilson finally comes back, his resources exhausted, he finds that Mama has died in his absence. Addison angrily throws Wilson out of the house. Learning of rising property interests in Florida ("Land Boom!"), Addison decides to travel to Palm Beach to take advantage of the many rich people settling there who need houses built. (In reality, Mizner went there for his health.) On the train he meets the fictitious Hollis Bessemer, with whom he is smitten instantly. Hollis is the son of a wealthy industrialist, cut off by his father for refusing to enter the family business. His real passion is art, and although he is not talented, he dreams of creating an artist colony in Palm Beach with the help of his aunt, who is staying there in a hotel ("Talent"). Addison shows Hollis's aunt a plan for a house he proposes to build for her. Impressed, she agrees and offers to sponsor Hollis's artist colony. However, Hollis and Addison, now lovers, are too busy designing resort homes for the rich ("You") and enjoying each other's company ("The Best Thing That Ever Has Happened") to follow up on Hollis's original plan. Wilson arrives at Hollis's and Addison's house, destitute and sick ("The Game [Reprise]"). Addison reluctantly takes him in, and when Wilson has recovered, he begins to work on Hollis, persuading him to be a patron to his newest scheme: to build a brand new city in Boca Raton with Wilson as promoter and Addison as chief architect ("Addison's City"). Wilson's con man instincts resurface. He promotes the Boca Raton real estate scheme with increasingly extravagant and eventually fraudulent claims, creating a price bubble ("Boca Raton"). Addison goes along, until it is Hollis who finally puts a stop to the real-estate scheme. He asks Addison to choose between Wilson and him. Addison, brought to a state of desperation, drives Hollis away by claiming he never loved him. Addison also orders Wilson out of his life ("Get Out"), but Wilson insists Addison loves him too much ("Go"). Addison agrees, but still wants him to go. Wilson leaves for good, but not quite, for in the finale (as in the first scene) all the characters leave the stage except for Wilson and Addison. At this point, Wilson realizes that he, too, has died. The brothers bicker half-heartedly, their differences no longer mattering enough to keep them apart. Confronted by their father, they shrug off his criticisms and the brothers set out together on the road to eternity—or, as Wilson calls it, "the greatest opportunity of all". "Sooner or later", he says, "we're bound to get it right." 

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Set in 1986, in the fictional city of Rummidge, the book describes the relationship between Robyn Penrose, a feminist university teacher specialising in the industrial novel and women's writing and Vic Wilcox, the manager of J Pringle & Sons Casting & General Engineering ("Pringle's"). Robyn is a temporary lecturer at Rummidge, where her boss is Professor Philip Swallow. Swallow is still head of the English Department at Rummidge, but is now also Dean of Rummidge's Arts Faculty. Robyn has the temporary lectureship at Rummidge because of the time demands of Swallow's new administrative responsibilities. As part of the "Industry Year Shadow Scheme", the university is required to send one of its faculty into a local factory. Robyn is the chosen faculty member from Rummidge, and the chosen factory is Pringle's, where Robyn is to shadow Vic Wilcox and observe the inner workings of a real- life foundry, which she has never seen. The novel also traces the dynamics in the separate private lives of Robyn and Vic. In the Wilcox family are Vic, his father, his wife Marjorie and his children. Separately, Robyn goes through various stages of her long-standing relationship with her boyfriend, Charles, a fellow literary scholar. Later in the novel, to Robyn's discomfort, the shadow scheme reverses, after she has completed her time at Pringle's, with Vic shadowing her during her teaching work at Rummidge. The direct philosophical conflict between the ideologies of industry and academia come to the fore during this stage. Later, away from Vic, Professor Morris Zapp, a friend of Swallow's from the fictional American university Euphoric State (based on UC Berkeley), and a character from the earlier two novels in the Campus Trilogy, pays a brief visit to Rummidge on his way to a conference. He learns about Robyn's work for the first time, and is impressed. Zapp tries to arrange for Robyn to have a job interview at Euphoric State for an open faculty position, to run interference against his ex-wife, whom Euphoric State's faculty is trying to recruit separately for the post. The uncertainty in Robyn's professional status comes from whether she will be able to find a permanent post at Rummidge, or anywhere else, in the context of national budget reductions to the universities.Robyn Penrose makes a cameo appearance in Lodge's later novel Thinks ..., where her professional fate is revealed. The dynamic between Robyn and Vic reveals the weaknesses of each. Robyn's academic position is precarious because of national budget cuts to education and the universities. Vic has to deal with industrial politics at Pringle's. The plot is a pastiche of the industrial novel genre, alluding to North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell. This gentle ribbing acts to undermine the postmodern and feminist position of Robyn, who accepts the hand of fate despite ridiculing its role as the sole restorative capable (in the minds of authors of industrial novels) of elevating the female to a serious social position. Robyn acquires insight into the pragmatic ethos whose encroachment on university culture she resents, and about the physical reality of factories of which her only prior knowledge was literature. In his turn, Vic learns to appreciate the symbolic or semiotic dimension of his environment and discovers a romanticism within himself that he had previously despised in his everyday life. 

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Carly Beth Caldwell is a naive, timid and gullible 11-year-old girl who scares easily. Thus, she is constantly ridiculed by Steve Boswell and Chuck Greene at Walnut Avenue Middle School. The pair play several tricks on her, such as offering a sandwich containing a live worm. After school, she goes home and finds her mother has made her a plaster of Carly Beth's face as a symbol of love. When she goes to her room, her younger brother Noah scares her in a duck costume also made by their mother. At the school science fair, Steve causes a panic by announcing his pet tarantula has escaped, and exploits Carly Beth's arachnophobia by pinching her leg, leading her to believe that the tarantula has bitten her. She flies into a frenzied and destructive panic and is once again humiliated in front of her teachers and classmates. Carly Beth exasperatedly vents to her friend Sabrina and promises vengeance upon Steve and Chuck. She plots to go to a new shop that has opened, which sells frightening costumes, and plans to scare Steve and Chuck as payback. Within the shop, Carly Beth sneaks into a back room and discovers a row of hideously deformed masks. The store owner reluctantly sells her one of the masks and Carly Beth goes home in delight. After successfully scaring Noah with the mask, she dons it again on Halloween evening and manages to scare Chuck and Steve. However, as the night goes on, her voice deepens and her behavior becomes violent; she strangles Sabrina and frightens children she does not know. Carly Beth later discovers that she is unable to remove the mask and realizes to her horror that the mask has become one with her skin. Carly Beth returns to the shop, where the shopkeeper tells her that the "masks" in the back room are actually living faces that can only be removed by a "symbol of love", but if it attaches itself to her or another person again, the fusion will be permanent. The other masks suddenly come to life and begin to pursue Carly Beth. While running away from the masks, she realizes that the plaster mold her mother made is a symbol of love. Carly Beth finds the mold and uses it to deter the masks and remove the mask from her face. She returns home to her mother, tossing the mask away. Noah later bursts in and asks her, "How do I look in your mask?" 

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In the tale, a long train must be pulled over a high mountain after its engine breaks down. Larger engines, treated anthropomorphically, are asked to pull the train; for various reasons they refuse. The request is sent to a small engine, who agrees to try. The engine succeeds in pulling the train over the mountain while repeating its motto: "I-think-I-can". The story of the little engine has been told and retold many times. The underlying theme is the same — a stranded train is unable to find an engine willing to take it on over difficult terrain to its destination. Only the little blue engine is willing to try and, while repeating the mantra "I think I can, I think I can", overcomes a seemingly impossible task. An early version goes as follows: > A little railroad engine was employed about a station yard for such work as > it was built for, pulling a few cars on and off the switches. One morning it > was waiting for the next call when a long train of freight-cars asked a > large engine in the roundhouse to take it over the hill. "I can't; that is > too much a pull for me", said the great engine built for hard work. Then the > train asked another engine, and another, only to hear excuses and be > refused. In desperation, the train asked the little switch engine to draw it > up the grade and down on the other side. "I think I can", puffed the little > locomotive, and put itself in front of the great heavy train. As it went on > the little engine kept bravely puffing faster and faster, "I think I can, I > think I can, I think I can." > > As it neared the top of the grade, which had so discouraged the larger > engines, it went more slowly. However, it still kept saying, "I—think—I—can, > I—think—I—can." It reached the top by drawing on bravery and then went on > down the grade, congratulating itself by saying, "I thought I could, I > thought I could." A Disney version of the story was published in 1976: The story begins with a toy-filled train pulled by a small red engine on its way to a town on the other side of a mountain but the engine shortly breaks down upon reaching the mountain. The toy clown flags down other engines to help them: a shiny yellow passenger engine, a big black freight engine, and a rusty old engine. The shiny passenger engine and big freight engine both refuse to help them and the rusty old engine is too tired and must rest. Finally, a little blue engine arrives. Although she is simply a switcher engine and has never been over the mountain, she agrees to help pull the train. In the end, she was able to successfully reach the top of the mountain before slowly heading down towards the town. 

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Marian Holland charmed Sidney Strutt (Martin Gabel), head of a tax consulting company, into hiring her without references. Some months later, she steals nearly $10,000 from the company safe and flees. Changing her appearance and identity, Marian, whose real name is Margaret "Marnie" Edgar (Tippi Hedren), travels to Virginia where she stables a horse named Forio. She then visits her invalid mother, Bernice (Louise Latham), whom she supports financially, in Baltimore. Mark Rutland (Sean Connery), a wealthy widower who owns a publishing company in Philadelphia, meets with Strutt on business. He learns about the robbery and recalls Marnie from a previous visit. Some months later, Marnie, posing as Mary Taylor, happens to apply to Mark's company and is hired after he recognizes her. While working weekend overtime with Mark, Marnie has a panic attack during a thunderstorm. Mark comforts then kisses her. They begin seeing each other socially. It is learned that Marnie suffers from bad dreams and the color red can trigger an extreme emotional reaction. Soon after, Marnie steals money from Mark's company and again flees. Mark tracks her to the stable where she keeps Forio. Unexpectedly, he blackmails her into marrying him, much to the chagrin of Mark's former sister-in-law, Lil (Diane Baker), who is in love with Mark. Lil grows suspicious when she discovers Mark has spent a considerable sum since marrying Marnie. On their honeymoon cruise, Marnie is repulsed by any physical intimacy. Mark initially respects her wishes, but then rapes her. The next morning, she attempts to drown herself in the ship's swimming pool, but Mark saves her. Lil tips off Mark that Marnie's mother is still alive and living in Baltimore. Mark hires a private detective to investigate. Meanwhile, Lil overhears Mark telling Marnie that he has "paid off Strutt" on her behalf. Lil mischievously invites Strutt and his wife to a large party at the Rutland mansion. Strutt recognizes Marnie, but Mark persuades him to say nothing. When Marnie later admits to additional robberies, Mark works to reimburse her victims in exchange for dropping charges. Mark brings Forio to their estate, pleasing Marnie. During a fox hunt, Forio bolts. After a wild gallop, Forio misses a jump and breaks a leg, and lies on the ground screaming in pain. Marnie frantically runs to a nearby house and manages to obtain a gun and shoots her horse. Crazed with grief, Marnie goes home where she finds the key to Mark's office. She then goes to the office, opens the safe, and finds herself unable to take the money she wants to steal, even after Mark arrives and "urges" her to take it. Mark forcibly takes Marnie to Baltimore to confront her mother and extract the truth about Marnie's past. They arrive in a thunderstorm. As it is revealed that Bernice was a prostitute, Marnie's long-suppressed memories resurface: when she was a small child, one of Bernice's clients, (Bruce Dern) tried to calm a frightened Marnie during a thunderstorm. Seeing him touch Marnie and believing he was trying to molest her, Bernice attacked him. As the man fended her off, she fell and injured her leg, leaving her disabled. Marnie, frightened and attempting to protect her mother, fatally struck the man in the head with a fireplace poker. Bernice told police that she herself killed the man and prayed Marnie would forget the event. She had become pregnant as a young, unmarried girl, and says she has always loved Marnie. Understanding the reason behind her behavior, Marnie asks for Mark's help. He promises to help her. They leave holding each other closely. Mark and Marnie on their honeymoon cruise 

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Several British and American civilians, service members and merchant mariners are stuck in a lifeboat in the North Atlantic after their ship and a U-boat sink each other in combat. Willi, a German survivor, is pulled aboard and denies being the U-boat's captain. During an animated debate, engine room crewman Kovac demands the German be thrown out to drown. However, the others object, with radioman Stanley, wealthy industrialist Rittenhouse and columnist Connie Porter, who speaks German, succeeding in arguing that he be allowed to stay. Porter, initially alone in the boat, had managed to bring her luggage with her, and her primary concern at first is a run in her stocking. She is thrilled at having filmed the battle between the two vessels, but her movie camera is the first in a series of her possessions to be lost overboard in a succession of incidents. Among the passengers is Mrs. Higley, a young British woman whose infant child is dead when they are pulled from the water after being saved by steward "Joe" Spencer. After being treated by a U.S. Army nurse, Alice, she must be tied down to stop her from hurting herself. The woman, still wrapped in Porter's mink coat for warmth, sneaks off the boat while the other passengers sleep, drowning herself in the night. Willi is revealed to be the U-boat captain. The film then follows the lifeboat inhabitants as they attempt to organize their rations, set a course for Bermuda, and coexist as they try to survive. The passengers also cooperate through this stress, such as when they must amputate the leg of one of their boatmates, the German-American Gus Smith, because of gangrene. Kovac takes charge, rationing the little food and water they have, but Willi, who has been consulting a concealed compass and reveals that he speaks English, wrests control away from him in a storm. One morning, while the others are sleeping, Smith, who has been drinking seawater and is hallucinating, catches Willi drinking water from a hidden flask. Gus tries to tell Stanley but Stanley doesn't believe him because Gus also tells him he just had an ice-cold one with Rosie. Willi tries to coax Gus overboard, telling him that Rosie is waiting, but Gus keeps talking about the water, and, afraid someone will hear, Willi pushes him over the side. Gus’ calls for help rouse Stanley and the others, but it is too late. Alice wishes she could cry for Gus, but tears are made of water. When they realize that Willi is sweating, Stanley remembers what Gus told him. Joe pulls the flask from Willi's shirt, but it breaks when Willi grabs at it. Willi explains that like everyone on a U-boat he had food tablets and energy pills. To survive, one must have a plan. In a spasm of anger led by Alice, they descend upon him as a group, all but Joe, who tries to pull Alice back. Stanley grabs a piece of board and hits him repeatedly; the others use their fists to beat him and force him overboard. He clings to the side, out of camera, and while the others feebly pummel him, Rittenhouse grabs Gus' boot and delivers two sweeping and, by the sound, skull-crushing blows. Later on, as they drift, Rittenhouse says that he will never understand Willi's ingratitude. "What do you do with people like that?" No one answers. Stanley proposes to Alice, and she accepts, although they have little hope of surviving. Connie chastises everyone for giving up and pauses in her tirade on the exclamation "ye gods and little fishes!" Inspired, she offers her bracelet as bait. A fish strikes, but Joe sights a ship, and in the rush for the oars the line goes overboard and the bracelet is lost. It is the German supply ship to which Willi had been steering them. But before a launch can pick them up, both it and the supply ship are sunk by gunfire from an Allied warship over the horizon. Kovac estimates that the Allied vessel will be there in 20 minutes. Connie panics over the state of her hair, nails and face. Joe hopes his wife isn't worried. Rittenhouse admires a picture of Joe's family—and still persists in calling him "George". Rittenhouse promises to honor his poker debt to Kovac: $50,000 ($ today). Connie tells Kovac he is going to take it because he owes her a bracelet, a typewriter and a camera. He smiles and says "Yes ma'am." A frightened, wounded, young German seaman is pulled aboard the lifeboat. Rittenhouse is now all for killing him, and the others, including Kovac, have to hold him back. The German sailor pulls a gun but is disarmed by Joe. The seaman asks in German, "Aren't you going to kill me?" Kovac muses, "'Aren't you going to kill me?' What are you going to do with people like that?" Stanley says "I don't know, I was thinking of Mrs. Higley and her baby, and Gus." "Well," Connie says, "maybe they can answer that." 

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Hansel and Gretel meeting the witch, by Alexander Zick.The story is set in medieval Germany. Hansel and Gretel are the young children of a poor woodcutter. When a great famine settles over the land, the woodcutter's wife (originally the children's mother but in revised editions she is their stepmother) decides to take the children into the woods and leave them there to fend for themselves, so that she and her husband do not starve to death, as the children eat too much. The woodcutter opposes the plan but finally, and reluctantly, submits to his wife's scheme. They are unaware that in the children's bedroom, Hansel and Gretel have overheard them. After the parents have gone to bed, Hansel sneaks out of the house and gathers as many white pebbles as he can, then returns to his room, reassuring Gretel that God will not forsake them. The next day, the family walk deep into the woods and Hansel lays a trail of white pebbles. After their parents abandon them, the children wait for the moon to rise and then they followed the pebbles back home. They return home safely, much to their stepmother's rage. Once again provisions become scarce and the mother angrily orders her husband to take the children further into the woods and leave them there to die. Hansel and Gretel attempt to gather more pebbles, but find the doors locked and find it impossible to escape. Illustration by Ludwig Richter, 1842 The following morning, the family treks into the woods. Hansel takes a slice of bread and leaves a trail of bread crumbs for them to follow home. However, after they are once again abandoned, they find that the birds have eaten the crumbs and they are lost in the woods. After days of wandering, they follow a beautiful white bird to a clearing in the woods, and discover a large cottage built of gingerbread, cakes, candy and with window panes of clear sugar. Hungry and tired, the children begin to eat the rooftop of the house, when the door opens and a "very old woman" emerges and lures the children inside with the promise of soft beds and delicious food. They enter without realizing that their hostess is a bloodthirsty witch who built the gingerbread house to waylay children to cook and eat them. The next morning, the witch locks Hansel in an iron cage in the garden and forces Gretel into becoming a slave. The witch feeds Hansel regularly to fatten him up, but when she tries to touch him to see how fat he has become, Hansel cleverly offers a bone he found in the cage (presumably a bone from the witch's previous captive) and the witch feels it, thinking it to be his finger. Due to her blindness, she is fooled into thinking Hansel is still too thin to eat. After weeks of this, the witch grows impatient and decides to eat Hansel, "be he fat or lean". She prepares the oven for Hansel, but decides she is hungry enough to eat Gretel, too. She coaxes Gretel to the open oven and asks her to lean over in front of it to see if the fire is hot enough. Gretel, sensing the witch's intent, pretends she does not understand what the witch means. Infuriated, the witch demonstrates, and Gretel instantly shoves the witch into the hot oven, slams and bolts the door shut, and leaves "The ungodly witch to be burned in ashes". Gretel frees Hansel from the cage and the pair discover a vase full of treasure, including precious stones. Putting the jewels into their clothing, the children set off for home. A swan ferries them across an expanse of water, and at home they find only their father; his wife died from some unknown cause. Their father had spent all his days lamenting the loss of his children, and is delighted to see them safe and sound. With the witch's wealth, they all live happily ever after. 

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Nikita (Anne Parillaud) is a nihilistic teenage junkie who commits her life to anarchy, drugs and violence. One night, she participates in the robbery of a pharmacy owned by a friend's parents. The robbery goes awry, erupting into a gunfight with local police, during which her accomplices are killed. Suffering severe withdrawal symptoms, she murders a GIGN officer. Nikita is arrested, tried, and convicted of murder and is sentenced to life in prison. In prison, her captors fake her death, making it appear that she has committed suicide via a tranquilizer overdose. She awakens in a nondescript room, where a well- dressed but hard-looking man named Bob (Tchéky Karyo) tells her that, although officially dead and buried, she is in the custody of a shadowy government agency known as "the Centre" (possibly part of the DGSE). She is given the choice of becoming an assassin, or of actually occupying "row 8, plot 30", her fake grave.as per the original French version/English subtitles After some resistance, she chooses the former and gradually proves to be a talented killer. She is taught computer skills, martial arts, and firearms. One of her trainers, Amande (Jeanne Moreau), transforms her from a degenerate drug addict to a beautiful femme fatale. Amande implies that she was also rescued and trained by the Centre. Her initial mission, killing a foreign diplomat in a crowded restaurant and escaping back to the Centre from his well-armed bodyguards, doubles as the final test in her training. She graduates and begins life as a sleeper agent in Paris (under the name Marie). She meets Marco (Jean-Hugues Anglade) in a supermarket and the two develop an intimate relationship although he knows nothing of her real profession. Marco is curious about her past and why she has no family or other friends. Nikita then invites Bob to dinner as "Uncle Bob". Bob tells stories about "Marie"'s imaginary childhood, then giving the couple tickets for a trip to Venice, purportedly as an engagement gift. Nikita and Marco go on the trip and during their preparation to make love, the phone rings. She thinks it's the room service they just ordered, but it is instructions for her next job. As her room is, not surprisingly, perfectly located to take aim at the target, she goes to the bathroom window, supposedly to take a bath, and as she prepares the rifle, Marco is attempting to talk to her through the door. The instructions on whom to shoot take longer than expected and she can't answer him. She finally gets the instructions and takes out her target. She is barely able to conceal the rifle before Marco walks in, against her wishes. By then, she is distraught because she has ignored and hurt him due to her job. Still, her career as an assassin goes well until a document-theft mission in an embassy goes awry. The Centre sends in Victor "The Cleaner" (Jean Reno), a ruthless operative, to salvage the mission and destroy all the evidence of the foul-up. When one of the operatives turns on Victor and is killed by him, Nikita is forced to take his place. They make it most of the way through the mission when it goes bad. The gate is closed and Victor takes on a bunch of guards before being fatally wounded, but drives them to safety before succumbing to his wounds. Marco reveals that he has discovered Nikita's secret life, and, concerned over how her activities are affecting her psychologically, persuades her to disappear. Upon discovering that she abandoned the Centre, Bob goes to their apartment where he meets with Marco. Bob says she can't be out of danger because she still has the documents, after which Marco hands them over. They agree that they will both miss her. 

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In 1973, a young Michael Jordan tells his father that he wants to go to The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to play in the championship team, then go to the NBA. A compilation of highlights from Jordan's basketball career, which includes highlights from high school, college, the 1984 and the 1992 Olympics, and the Chicago Bulls, is followed by an excerpt from the 1993 press conference in which Jordan announced his retirement from professional basketball, to pursue a career in baseball, in which Jordan is popular, but less skilled. Meanwhile, in outer space, the amusement park Moron Mountain faces decline. Its owner, Mr. Swackhammer, sends his diminutive minions, the Nerdlucks, to Earth to abduct the Looney Tunes as a new attraction. Upon the Nerdlucks' arrival, Bugs Bunny and the other Looney Tunes take advantage of the Nerdlucks' small stature and challenge them to a game of basketball. Through a documentary of basketball, the Nerdlucks learn that the sport's best players are employed by the NBA, and accept the proposal. After stealing the talents of NBA players Charles Barkley, Shawn Bradley, Patrick Ewing, Larry Johnson and Muggsy Bogues, the Nerdlucks transform themselves into the large, muscular, and talented Monstars and easily intimidate the Tunes, prompting Bugs to seek professional aid. While golfing with Bill Murray, Larry Bird, and his personal assistant, Stan Podolack, Jordan is suddenly lassoed down a hole and into the Looney Tunes' world. Bugs explains the situation to Jordan, whom hope is placed on as one of the best basketball players in the world. Although reluctant, he agrees to play after a confrontation with the Monstars insults his pride, and organizes the Tunes into a team, the "Toon Squad". A female rabbit named Lola Bunny, whom Bugs falls in love with, is added to the team thanks to her talents. Jordan sends Bugs and Daffy Duck back to his house to obtain his basketball gear. When they arrive, Bugs and Daffy meet Jordan's dog and kids, and are later seen by Stan, who follows them back to the cartoon world. Meanwhile, the sudden incapacity of the five NBA players leads to worldwide panic that results in the season ending early. The players try to restore their skills through practice, hospitalization, therapy, and prayer, but to no avail. On the day of the match, the Monstars dominate the first half, sinking the Tune Squad's morale. Stan overhears about how the Monstars obtained their talent and informs Jordan. Bugs and Jordan rally the Tune Squad and dominate the third quarter using old-school gags and Acme weaponry. During a timeout, Jordan raises the stakes with Swackhammer: a win by the Toon Squad would require the Monstars returning their stolen talents while a win by the Monstars would allow Swackhammer make Jordan a new attraction for Moron Mountain, for the rest of his life. With ten seconds left in the game, the Toon Squad are down by one point and one player, due to most of them being injured from the Monstars' rough playing, leaving only Jordan, Bugs, Lola, and Daffy left. Murray unexpectedly arrives and is recruited to fill the spot. In the final seconds, Jordan gains the ball with Murray's help but is pulled back by the Monstars. Remembering advice from Bugs, he uses cartoon physics to extend his arm and dunk the ball, winning the match with a buzzer beater. Seeing the Monstars being reprimanded by Swackhammer, Jordan helps them realize that they only listened to him because they were smaller. The Monstars encase Swackhammer in a missile and send him back to his amusement park. Giving up their stolen talent, the Nerdlucks are recruited into the Looney Tunes ensemble and drop off Jordan at his next baseball game. Later, Jordan visits the incapacitated basketball players and returns their talent, to which the players provoke a reluctant Jordan into participating in a three-on-three match. Two years later in 1995, Jordan returns to the Chicago Bulls to resume his basketball career. 

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Naked Lunch is a non- linear narrative without a clear plot. The following is a summary of some of the events in the book that could be considered the most relevant. The book begins with the adventures of William Lee (also known as "Lee the Agent"), who is Burroughs' alter ego in the novel. His journey starts in the U.S. where he is fleeing the police in search of his next fix. There are short chapters describing the different characters he travels with and meets along the way. Eventually he gets to Mexico where he is assigned to Dr. Benway; for what, he is not told. Benway appears and he tells about his previous doings in Annexia as a "Total Demoralizator." The story then moves to a state called Freeland, a form of limbo, where we learn of Islam Inc. Here, some new characters are introduced, such as Clem, Carl, and Joselito. A short section then jumps in space and time to a marketplace. The Black Meat is sold here and compared to "junk", i.e. heroin. The action then moves back to the hospital where Benway is fully revealed as a manipulative sadist. Time and space again shift the narrative to a location known as Interzone. Hassan, one of the notable characters of the book and "a notorious liquefactionist", is throwing a violent orgy. AJ crashes the party and wreaks havoc, decapitating people and imitating a pirate. Hassan is enraged and tells AJ never to return, calling him a "factualist bitch," a term which is enlarged much later when the apparently "clashing" political factions within Interzone are described. These include the Liquefactionists, the Senders, the Factualists, and the Divisionists (who occupy "a midway position"). A short descriptive section tells of Interzone University, where a professor and his students are ridiculed; the book moves on to an orgy that AJ throws. The book then shifts back to the market place and a description of the totalitarian government of Annexia. Characters including the County Clerk, Benway, Dr. Berger, Clem and Jody are sketched through heavy dialogue and their own sub-stories. After the description of the four parties of Interzone, we are told more stories about AJ. After briefly describing Interzone, the novel breaks into sub-stories and heavily cut-up influenced passages. In a sudden return to what seems to be Lee's reality, two police officers, Hauser and O'Brien, catch up with Lee, who kills both of them. Lee then goes out to a street phone booth and calls the Narcotics Squad, saying he wants to speak to O'Brien. A Lieutenant Gonzales on the other end of the line claims there's no one in their records called O'Brien. When Lee asks for Hauser instead, the reply is identical; Lee hangs up, and goes on the run once again. The book then becomes increasingly disjointed and impressionistic, and finally simply stops. 

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The United States has become strategically isolated after NATO is completely disbanded. At the same time, the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact allies aggressively expand their sphere of influence. In addition, the Ukrainian wheat harvest fails while a socialist coup d'état occurs in Mexico. On a September morning, in the small town of Calumet, Colorado, a local high school teacher pauses when he sees Soviet troops parachuting from An-12 transport aircraft landing in a nearby field. The paratroopers open fire when the teacher walks outside to question them. Pandemonium follows, as students flee amid heavy gunfire. Jed Eckert, who had dropped his brother Matt off at the high school, ragging him about a recent loss of a football game, returns to the high school and picks up Matt and several of their friends, narrowly escaping all that is going on. In downtown Calumet, Cuban, Nicaraguan, and Soviet troops are trying to impose order after a hasty occupation. Cuban Colonel Bella instructs the KGB to go to a local sporting goods store and obtain the records of the store's gun sales on the ATF's Form 4473, which lists citizens who have purchased firearms. Brothers Jed and Matt Eckert, along with their friends Robert Morris, Danny, Daryl Bates, and Arturo "Aardvark" Mondragon, flee into the wilderness after hastily equipping themselves at the sporting goods store owned by Robert's father. While on the way to the mountains they run into a Soviet roadblock, but are saved by an attacking U.S. Army UH-1 helicopter gunship. After several weeks in the forest, they sneak back into town, where Jed and Matt learn that their father is being held in a re-education camp. They visit the site and speak to him through the fence, and learn that their mother is already dead; Mr. Eckert, reminding his sons of how he had purposely raised them in a strenuous manner, orders his sons to avenge his inevitable death and that of his wife. The kids visit the Masons and learn that they are behind enemy lines in "occupied America". Robert's father is revealed to have been executed because of the missing inventory from his store. The Masons charge Jed and Matt with taking care of their two granddaughters, Toni and Erica. After killing Soviet soldiers in the woods, the youths begin an armed resistance against the occupation forces, calling themselves "Wolverines" after their high school mascot. The occupation forces initially try reprisal tactics, executing groups of civilians following every Wolverine attack. During one of these mass executions, the fathers of Jed, Matt, and Aardvark are killed. Daryl's father, Mayor Bates, tries to soften the blow against Calumet and save the lives of the captured citizens by appeasing the occupation authorities, effectively becoming a collaborator, but with little success. Despite the reprisal tactics, the occupation forces get nowhere. The Wolverines meet an American fighter pilot, Lt. Col. Andrew Tanner (Powers Boothe), who was shot down by Cuban MiG-21s. Tanner informs them of the current state of the war: several American cities, including Washington, D.C., were destroyed by nuclear strikes; the Strategic Air Command was crippled by Cuban saboteurs, and paratroopers were dropped from fake commercial airliners to seize key positions in preparation for subsequent assaults via Mexico and Alaska. Most of the Southern United States and North Western Canada has been taken over by the Soviets, but American counterattacks have halted Soviet advances along the Rocky Mountains and the Mississippi River and the lines have stabilized. The only remaining U.S. allies, the United Kingdom and the People's Republic of China, are militarily crippled. Concerned about nuclear fallout, both sides refrain from the further use of nuclear weapons. Tanner assists the Wolverines in organizing raids against the Soviets. Their actions draw the attention of a Soviet General, who orders reprisals against the civilian population. The Wolverines' actions, and the reprisals against civilians eventually leads to the high command of both sides of war to know the name "Wolverines", and the Soviet generals publicly stating that the area "may not be pacified for much longer". Soon after, in a visit to the front line, Tanner and Aardvark are killed in the crossfire of a tank battle. Daryl is caught by the Soviets after being turned in by his collaborating father. Using threats of torture, KGB officers force Daryl to swallow a tracking device, then release him to rejoin the guerrillas. A Spetsnaz unit is sent into the mountains carrying portable radio triangulation equipment, but are ambushed by the Wolverines. The group traces the source of the radio triangulation signal to Daryl, who confesses and pleads for mercy. He is executed, along with a Spetsnaz operative by an increasingly hardened Robert when the others cannot find the heart to kill their friend. The remaining Wolverines are ambushed by Mi-24 helicopter gunships, and Toni and Robert are killed, Robert while successfully but suicidally attacking a gunship. Jed and Matt go to attack the Soviet headquarters in Calumet, to distract the troops while Danny and Erica escape. The plan works, but both Jed and Matt are mortally wounded. Colonel Bella comes across the brothers, but sensing the already too-great loss of the war, the colonel is unable to bring himself to kill them, and so he motions them on. The brothers reach a bench in the park where they spent time as kids, holding each other as they die. Meanwhile, Danny and Erica trek through the Rocky Mountain Wilderness where they reach the frontier of Free America. In the closing scene, a plaque is seen with Partisan Rock in the background. The rock is fenced off and an American flag flies nearby. The plaque reads: 

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From the first series voice-over: The line "NATO also has its own" is not always present. 

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Motorcycle racer Bud Clay undertakes a cross-country drive, following a race in New Hampshire, in order to participate in a race in California. All the while he is haunted by memories of his former lover, Daisy. On his journey he meets three women, but Bud seems to be a lost soul, and he is unable to form an emotional connection with any of them. He first meets Violet at a gas station in New Hampshire and convinces her to join him on his trip. They stop at her home in order to get her clothes, but he drives off as soon as she enters the house. Bud's next stop is the home of Daisy's parents, the location of Daisy's brown bunny. Daisy's mother does not remember Bud, who grew up in the house next door, nor does she remember having visited Bud and Daisy in California. Next, Bud stops at a pet shelter, where he asks about the life expectancy of rabbits (he is told it is about five or six years). At a highway rest stop, he meets a distressed woman, Lilly. He comforts and kisses her, before starting to cry and eventually leaving her. Bud appears more distressed as the road trip continues, crying as he drives. He stops at the Bonneville Speedway to race his motorcycle. In Las Vegas, he drives around prostitutes on street corners, before deciding to ask one of them, Rose, to join him for a lunch. She eats McDonald's food in his truck until he stops, pays her, and leaves her back on the street. After having his motorcycle checked in a Los Angeles garage, Bud stops at Daisy's house, which appears abandoned. He leaves a note on the door frame, after sitting in his truck in the driveway remembering about kissing Daisy in this place, and checks in at a hotel. Daisy eventually appears there. She seems nervous, going to the bathroom twice to smoke crack cocaine, while Bud waits for her, sitting on his bed. As she proposes to go out to buy something to drink, Bud tells her that, because of what happened the last time they saw each other, he does not drink anymore. They have an argument about Daisy kissing other men. At this point, Bud undresses Daisy and she fellates him. Once done, he insults her as they lie in bed, talking about what happened during their last meeting. Bud continuously asks Daisy why she had been involved with some men at a party. She explains that she was just being friendly and wanted to smoke marijuana with them. Bud becomes upset because Daisy was pregnant and it transpires that the baby died as a result of what happened at this party. Through flashback scenes, the viewer understands that Daisy was raped at the party, a scene witnessed by Bud, who did not intervene. Daisy asks Bud why he did not help her, and his feelings of guilt on this are considerable. He tells her that he did not know what to do, and so he decided to leave the party. After he came back a bit later, he saw an ambulance in front of the house and Daisy explains to Bud that she is dead, having passed out prior to the rape and then choked to death on her own vomit. Bud awakens the next morning, alone; his encounter with Daisy turns out to have been a figment of his imagination. The movie ends as Bud is driving his truck in California. 

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The game loosely mirrors a portion of the series' plot, representing most of the events in the first book. Arthur Dent wakes up one day to find his house about to be destroyed by a construction crew to make way for a new bypass. His friend Ford Prefect, who is secretly an extraterrestrial, helps to calm Arthur down and hitches them a ride on one of the ships in the approaching Vogon constructor fleet, moments before the fleet destroys the Earth to make way for a new hyperspace bypass. Aboard the ship, Arthur learns that Ford is a journalist for The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and has been on Earth researching the planet for the Guide. The two are discovered by Vogons and subjected by the captain to a reading of his poetry. The two manage to survive this, and the Vogons throw them into the airlock and shoot them out into space. By a huge improbability, they are picked up in the last moment before they die of asphyxiation by the spacecraft Heart of Gold while it is traveling on Infinite Improbability Drive. After getting safely aboard the ship, Arthur and Ford meet Ford's friend Zaphod Beeblebrox, who had stolen the Heart of Gold as his first act of office as the Galactic President, as well as Arthur's friend Trillian (Tricia McMillan), whom Zaphod had picked up from a party on Earth. Zaphod wants to travel to the legendary planet of Magrathea, believing it to hold a great secret. At this point, Zaphod leaves the task of getting to Magrathea to the ship's computer Eddie, and he, Ford, and Trillian depart to the ship's sauna. Arthur finds Eddie incapable of getting to Magrathea without help. Arthur initially tries to help by supplying the Infinite Improbability Drive with a tea substitute from the ship's Nutrimatic device to serve as a source of Brownian motion, but this only causes Arthur to temporarily take on the consciousness of Ford, Zaphod, and Trillian in their respective pasts, and he must manipulate events such that items in these past periods are brought aboard the Heart of Gold in the present. Through this, Arthur gains enough parts as to replace the circuit board in the Nutrimatic so that it can produce real tea. This tea is powerful enough to power the Drive to get them to Magrathea, but in orbit, the ship is attacked by two missiles from the surface. Arthur employs the Drive again to change the missiles into a sperm whale and a bowl of petunias, neutralizing the threat. The ship prepares to land, but the computer will not let them do so. Again, the other three head off to the sauna, leaving Arthur to figure out how to fix this. This requires Arthur to reach Marvin the Paranoid Android's closet on the ship in order to get the final tools needed to fix the computer and get it to land. The game ends as Arthur and the others are about to set foot on Magrathea. 

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Believing the World to be corrupt, the secret organization Across plans to conquer the world. The first step in the plan for world domination is to begin by focusing on one city in order to minimize setbacks. Across consists of the leader of the organization, Il Palazzo, and his young adult officers: the enthusiastic and energetically devoted Excel and the soft-spoken and prone to spitting out much blood and fainting Hyatt. Excel and Hyatt live in an apartment building in the city, along with their pet dog Menchi, who they have deemed their emergency food supply. Excel and Hyatt are later joined by a snobbish but equally clueless rival officer of Across named Elgala. Living in the neighboring apartment are three guys: Iwata, Sumiyoshi and Watanabe, who along with apartment neighbor and co-worker Matsuya, work for the Department of City Security. The Department's leader, Dr. Kabapu, also has a grandiose plan on stopping Across; he has the City Security workers dress in Super Sentai-like uniforms and sends them on different missions. Supporting Kabapu is an inventor Gojo Shiouji who likes little girls, and his gynoid Ropponmatsu, who later is deployed as two models. The series follows the daily interactions among the two groups. Il Palazzo would send the girls on their missions but the results are usually a failure with some explosive or catastrophic damage to the city. Kabapu would send the City Security workers on some equally ridiculous assignment which would also go wrong. Eventually Il Palazzo and Kabapu become aware of each other's manipulations and escalate their plans. Excel finds herself being replaced by an impersonator who heads the ILL Corporation. Massive amounts of money is spent on elections and politics. Eventually the members of Across begin making appeals directly to the City's citizens before Il Palazzo publicly declares the existence of Across and its intentions to the public. Hyatt is captured and Excel and Elgala are later held in an immigrant detention center before being rescued by Il Palazzo, who begins the new phase of his plans. The anime adaptation introduces some original characters: immigrant worker turned wandering spirit Pedro; alien mascot-like creatures called Puchuu; and The Great Will of the Macrocosm, the last of whom occasionally resets the storyline. The anime director Shinichi Watanabe cameos as an afro-wearing guy named Nabeshin, and a caricature of the manga artist also makes appearances. 

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The plot concerns a merchant, Mr Sterling, who wants to marry off his elder daughter to Sir John Melvil, who is actually in love with her younger sister, Fanny. Fanny, however, is in love with a humble clerk, Lovewell, whom she has secretly married. Her attempts to extricate herself from the arrangement with Melvil lead to her becoming the proposed bride of Melvil's elderly uncle, Lord Ogleby. When the truth comes out, Fanny and Lovewell are forgiven. 

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The Great Leslie and Professor Fate are competing daredevils at the turn of the 20th century. Leslie is the classic hero – always dressed in white, handsome, ever-courteous, enormously talented and successful. Leslie's nemesis, Fate, is the traditional melodramatic villain – usually dressed in black, sporting a black moustache and top hat, glowering at most everyone, maniacal evil laugh, grandiose plans to thwart the hero, and dogged by failure. Leslie proposes an automobile race from New York City to Paris and offers the Webber Motor Car Company the opportunity to build an automobile to make the journey. They design and build a new car named "The Leslie Special". Fate builds his own race vehicle, "The Hannibal Twin-8", complete with hidden devices of sabotage. Other car owners enter the race, including one owned by New York City's most prominent newspaper. Driving the newspaper's car is beautiful photojournalist Maggie DuBois, a vocal suffragette. A seven-car race begins, but Fate's long-suffering sidekick Maximilian Meen has sabotaged four other cars (and his own, by mistake), leaving just three cars in the race. The surviving teams are Leslie with his loyal mechanic Hezekiah Sturdy, Maggie DuBois driving a Stanley Steamer by herself, and Fate and Max. The steamer car breaks down and Maggie accepts a lift in the Leslie Special. Fate arrives first at a refueling point, the small Western frontier town of Borracho. A local outlaw named "Texas Jack" becomes jealous of the attraction to Leslie shown by showgirl Lily Olay and a saloon brawl ensues. Fate sneaks outside amidst the chaos, steals the fuel he needs, and destroys the rest. Leslie uses mules to pull his car to another refueling point, where Maggie tricks Hezekiah into boarding a train and handcuffs him to a seat, lying to Leslie that Hezekiah had quit and "wanted to go back to New York". The two remaining cars reach the Bering Strait and park side by side in a blinding snowstorm. Keeping warm during the storm, Leslie and Maggie begin to see each other as more than competitors. Mishaps, including a polar bear in Fate's car, compel all four racers to warm themselves in Leslie's car. They awaken on a small ice floe which drifts into their intended Russian port, where Hezekiah is waiting for Leslie, who in turn casts off Maggie for deceiving him. Maggie is snatched by Fate, who drives off in the lead. After driving across Asia, both cars enter the tiny kingdom of Carpania, whose alcoholic and foppish Crown Prince Friedrich Hapnick is the spitting image of Professor Fate. Plotters under the leadership of Baron Rolfe von Stuppe and General Kuhster kidnap the Prince, Fate, Max, and Maggie. Max escapes and joins Leslie to rescue the others. Fate is forced to masquerade as the Prince during the coronation so that the rebels can gain control of the kingdom. Leslie and Max overcome Von Stuppe's henchmen and confront Von Stuppe. Following a climactic sword fight with Leslie, Von Stuppe attempts escape by leaping to a waiting boat, but bursts the hull and sinks it. Leslie and Max return the real Prince to the capital in time to defeat Kuhster's plan for a military coup. Fate, still masquerading as Prince Hapnick, takes refuge in a bakery but falls into a huge cake. A pie fight ensues involving the racers, the Prince's men and the conspirators. The five racers, covered in pie filling, depart Carpania with King Friedrich's best wishes. As the racers leave Pottsdorf (with Maggie now back in Leslie's car), it becomes a straight road race to Paris. Nearing Paris, Leslie and Maggie have a spirited argument regarding the roles of men, women and sex in relationships. Leslie stops his car just short of the finish line under the Eiffel Tower to prove that he loves Maggie more than he cares about winning the race. Fate drives past to claim the winner's mantle, but becomes indignant that Leslie let him win. Fate demands a rematch: a race back to New York. The return race commences, with newlyweds Leslie and Maggie now a team. Fate lets them start first, then attempts to destroy their car with a small cannon. The shot misses the Leslie Special, instead knocking down the Eiffel Tower. 

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On 12 October 1978, police are summoned to the Hotel Chelsea in New York City, where they find Nancy Spungen, dead. Her boyfriend, Sex Pistols bassist Sid Vicious, is taken into custody. Nancy's friend, Gretchen, mourns her as paramedics remove her body. Sid is driven to a police station and upon arrival is asked to describe what happened. Police officers become frustrated when Sid is visibly troubled and unable to speak. A little more than a year earlier, in 1977, close friends and band members Sid and Johnny Rotten meet Nancy, a heroin-addicted American groupie who had come to London to bed the Sex Pistols. Sid dismisses her at first, as her intentions are obvious, but begins dating her after feeling sympathy for the rejection she faces from fellow punk performers. The two swiftly bond over heroin use, and it is implied that Nancy introduces Sid to the drug. Sid and Nancy fall deeply in love, but their self-destructive, drug-fueled relationship frays Sid's relationship with the rest of the band. Nancy is distraught when Sid departs on a month-long American tour without her. The tour is notably disastrous, with Sid strung out of his mind, often drunk or on methamphetamine, and physically violent. Phoebe, Sid's friend and road manager, unsuccessfully attempts to help him stop drinking. Meanwhile, Nancy remains in London, staying with her friend Linda, a dominatrix. Although several of Sid's friends and acquaintances warn him of Nancy's devastating effect on his life, Sid stubbornly ignores these warnings. On 17 January 1978, in the midst of the group's American tour, the band breaks up. Sid reunites with Nancy in New York City, and he attempts to start a solo career with Nancy as his manager. The two visit Paris to begin recording sessions, but the trip is unfruitful. Sid is quickly dismissed in the music industry as a has-been, and he and Nancy descend deeper into heroin addiction; Nancy also begins suffering from severe depression, and the couple eventually make a suicide pact. Nancy brings Sid to Philadelphia to meet her family, who are horrified by the couple's reckless behavior and physical state. Sid and Nancy return to New York and settle in the Hotel Chelsea, where they isolate in squalor and depend on opiates supplied by their drug dealer, Bowery Snax. Their love affair ends tragically one night when, during an argument in which Sid announces his plans to stop using heroin and return to England to restart his life, a suicidal Nancy begs him to kill her. She attacks him and they fight in a drug-induced haze, leading to him stabbing her, although whether it was intentional is left to interpretation. They fall asleep and later Nancy awakes and stumbles into the bathroom, where she collapses and dies. Sid is bailed out temporarily by his mother, who is also a heroin addict. After getting a pizza, some kids convince him to dance with them. Some time later, a taxi picks Sid up and he believes he finds Nancy alive in the back seat. The two embrace as the cab drives off. A postscript says that Vicious died of a heroin overdose, and lastly reads: "R.I.P. Nancy and Sid." 

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"Set in the near future, A Gift traces the first generations to survive nuclear war and its aftermath. Writer Mary Hope and painter Rachel Morrow scratch out a meager existence on a farm (called Amarna) on the Oregon coast. They are determined to collect and preserve for a new civilization all the great books of western culture. Farther down the coast lives the Arkites, a fundamentalist group that denies all knowledge not found in the Bible. After a plague strikes the Arkites Mary agrees to take in a few survivors on the condition that she be allowed to educate the children as she sees fit". From the back cover of the backinprint.com paperback edition: A Gift Upon the Shore is a lyrical, haunting story of two women, an artist and a writer, who survive pandemic, the collapse of civilization, and a deadly nuclear winter. Driven by rich and fully drawn characters, this is a powerful, compelling story of a friendship that endures the devastation and finds a purpose for survival: to preserve the books, the shards of a lost golden age, as a gift to an unknowable posterity. Yet this gift is threatened by the only other survivors the women encounter, the people of the Ark, who believe that except for the Bible, all books are evil. A Gift Upon the Shore is a story about remaining human under the worst of conditions, and the humanizing influence of books and art and love. 

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The inhabitants of post-apocalypse Labrador have vague knowledge of the "Old People", a technologically advanced civilization they believe was destroyed when God sent "Tribulation" to the world to punish their forebears' sins. The inhabitants practise a form of fundamentalist Christianity; they believe that to follow God's word and prevent another Tribulation, they must preserve absolute normality among the surviving humans, plants and animals, and therefore practice eugenics. Humans with even minor mutations are considered blasphemies and either killed or sterilized and banished to the Fringes, a lawless and untamed area rife with animal and plant mutations, and suggested to be contaminated with radiation. Arguments occur over the keeping of a tailless cat or the possession of over- sized horses. These are deemed by the government to be legitimate breeds, either preexisting or achieved through conventional breeding. The government's position is considered both cynical and heretical by many of the orthodox frontier community, and it is suggested that they support the usage of these animals for the sole purpose of their greater efficiency. The inland rural settlement of Waknuk is a frontier farming community, populated with hardy and pious individuals, and is where the story mainly takes place. David Strorm, the son of Waknuk's most religious man, Joseph Strorm, has dreams of large cities and "horseless carts", although he does not understand why he has these dreams or what they mean, and is cautious about mentioning it to his father, lest he raise suspicion that he's a mutant. He makes friends with Sophie, a girl who secretly has six toes on one of her feet. Later, Sophie's family attempts to escape from the reprisals (ceremonies in which blasphemies are sterilized) when, having walked ashore from swimming, her wet footprints are observed by a local boy. David and other children in Waknuk hide their own form of mutation: telepathy. David's Uncle Axel, who knew about the group from talking to David about his telepathy when he was young, advises David and protects them from persecution. He advises David on the wisdom of hiding his and the other's ability, and later kills the husband of one of the group's members who was planning to blackmail the telepaths. David's younger sister Petra demonstrates exceptionally strong telepathic talent when her horse is attacked by a wildcat - she calls to all the telepaths for help across the entire Waknuk area, and stuns those closest to her. That leads to suspicion from the locals, and Uncle Axel warns the group, via David, that the Inspectors are beginning to investigate them. Later, two telepaths, Katherine and Sally, are captured and tortured for information, while David, his cousin Rosalind, and Petra escape to the Fringes. A group of men from various districts band together to track and capture the telepaths - unknown to the Norms, the posse includes a telepath named Michael who keeps the escaping group informed of the trackers' progress. Later, with Petra's strong telepathic abilities, they contact a society with telepaths in a different country they mistakenly refer to as "Sealand" (New Zealand). With the help of Sophie, who is now living in the Fringes, they escape the hunters and are rescued by a Sealand expedition. Unfortunately, they do not have enough fuel to take the craft back to Waknuk to pick up Rachel, the lone remaining Waknuk telepath, so they continue to Sealand. Michael vows to return to Waknuk to rescue Rachel, and join them in Sealand however they can. 

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Set in New Zealand's North Island during the New Zealand Wars, Utu follows Te Wheke (Anzac Wallace), a Maori Captain in the British army. When Te Wheke's unit comes across a village that has been slaughtered he, recognising it as his own, deserts the army and organises a guerilla force to terrorise the invading British forces. When the unit destroys the home of Williamson (Bruno Lawrence) and kills his wife, Williamson vows to hunt down Te Wheke and kill him himself. Meanwhile, army scout Wiremu (Wi Kuki Kaa) and recent Boer War veteran Lieutenant Scott (Kelly Johnson) aim to track down Te Wheke themselves, also using guerilla warfare techniques against the will of corrupt Colonel Elliot (Tim Eliott). 

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The following text from the box cover summarizes the premise: > Long ago, when magic still prevailed, the evil wizard Mangar the Dark > threatened a small but harmonious country town called Skara Brae. Evil > creatures oozed into Skara Brae and joined his shadow domain. Mangar froze > the surrounding lands with a spell of Eternal Winter, totally isolating > Skara Brae from any possible help. Then, one night the town militiamen all > disappeared. The future of Skara Brae hung in the balance. And who was left > to resist? Only a handful of unproven young Warriors, junior Magic Users, a > couple of Bards barely old enough to drink, and some out of work Rogues. You > are there. You are the leader of this ragtag group of freedom fighters. > Luckily you have a Bard with you to sing your glories, if you survive. For > this is the stuff of legends. And so the story begins... The introduction depicts a bard sitting in a tavern. Between occasional sips from his mug, he strums a lute and sings: > The song I sing Will tell the tale : of a cold and wintery day; Of castle > walls And torchlit halls : And a price men had to pay. When evil fled And > brave men bled : The Dark one came to stay, 'Til men of old For blood and > gold : Had rescued Skara Brae. In the actual game, the player forms a group of up to six characters. Game progress is made through advancing the characters so that they are powerful enough to defeat the increasingly dangerous foes and monsters in the dungeons, obtaining certain items relevant to solving the overall quest, and obtaining information. The (fictional) town of Skara Brae consists of 30x30 map tiles containing either buildings or streets (plus gates and magical guardian statues blocking certain streets). Access to one tower in the northeastern and southwestern city corner each is blocked by locked gates. The main city gates which open to the west are blocked by snow, and remain impassable throughout the game. One street seems to lead south endlessly, by actually teleporting the party back to its beginning upon reaching the portion where the city walls would be. Certain buildings within the city are special, such as the Adventurer's Guild, Garth's Equipment Shoppe, the Review Board (which is unmarked and must be found first, and is the only place where characters can advance in experience levels), various taverns and temples, and the dungeons. The latter are mazes of various kinds--cellars, sewers, catacombs, or fortresses--full of monsters and riddles, some guarded by magical statues that come to life to attack trespassing player parties. # The first dungeon is the Wine Cellar (1 level) of one particular tavern, which turns out to be connected to the Sewers of Skara Brae (3 levels) that in turn feature an exit that leads to the otherwise inaccessible southwestern corner of the city where Mangar's Tower, the final dungeon, is located. The tower cannot be entered without a key, however. In the sewers, numerous hints are found, including the name of the Mad God. Finding this first dungeon (the Wine Cellar) required the party to order some wine at a certain tavern. There was a hint to this in the manual (Hint: The first dungeon is the wine cellar of the only tavern in town which serves wine. It's on Rakhir Street). However, this hint was not present in the manual included with the C64 release of the game. Upon ordering wine, the party would be sent by the bartender to his cellar to fetch a bottle themselves. It is not actually possible within the game to obtain a bottle of wine, nor is it required to proceed. The purpose of this introductory dungeon was simply to introduce the dungeon concept and provide access to the sewers. # The undead-infested Catacombs (3 levels) beneath the temple of the Mad God, accessible only if his name is known (but not technically requiring the party to have found this password themselves; it just needs to be typed in by the player regardless of how they came to possess this information). On the lowest level, a Lich must be defeated to obtain an eye. # If they possess the eye, a statue of the Mad God in Baron Harkyn's Castle (3 levels) will teleport the party to the (otherwise inaccessible) northeastern area of Skara Brae where the next dungeon is located; however, it is not required to proceed to the next dungeon immediately. If weakened too much from the fighting in the castle, the party may elect to leave the area via one-way portals instead at this point and return to the city and the Adventurer's Guild. # Kylearan's Tower (1 level) can only be reached through the teleporter in Harkyn's Castle, requiring any party who wishes to enter to fight through the castle's three levels first. Kylearan the Archmage awaits the party at the conclusion of his tower maze and turns out to be friendly. He gives the party an access key to Mangar's Tower, the final dungeon, but they still have to circumvent the locked gates around the tower by going through the Sewers. # Still reachable only via the Sewers at this point in the game, Mangar's Tower (5 levels) is the final dungeon that has to be overcome to reach Mangar and slay him, provided the party has acquired several items in the other dungeons which are required to best him. At one point within the tower, the party can acquire a key that will allow them to access Mangar's Tower and Kylearan's Tower from the city directly thenceforward, without having to move through the Sewers or Harkyn's Castle, respectively. 

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A group of scientific researchers, isolated in Antarctica by the nearly-ended winter, discover an alien spaceship buried in the ice, where it crashed twenty million years before. They try to thaw the inside of the spacecraft with a thermite charge, but end up accidentally destroying it when the ship's magnesium hull is ignited by the charge. However, they do recover the alien pilot from the ancient ice, which the researchers believe was searching for heat when it was frozen. Thawing revives the alien, a being which can assume the shape, memories, and personality of any living thing it devours, while maintaining its original body mass for further reproduction. Unknown to them, the alien immediately kills and then imitates the crew's physicist, a man named Connant; with some 90 pounds of its matter left over it tries to become a sled dog. The crew discovers the dog-Thing and kills it in the process of transformation. Pathologist Blair, who had lobbied for thawing the Thing, goes insane with paranoia and guilt, vowing to kill everyone at the base in order to save mankind; he is isolated within a locked cabin at their outpost. Connant is also isolated as a precaution and a "rule-of-four" is initiated in which all personnel must remain under the close scrutiny of three others. The crew realizes they must isolate their base and therefore disable their airplanes and vehicles, yet they pretend things are normal during radio transmissions to prevent any rescue attempts. The researchers try to figure out who may have been replaced by the alien (simply referred to as the Thing), in order to destroy the imitations before they can escape and take over the world. The task is almost impossibly difficult when they realize that the Thing is also telepathic, able to read minds and project thoughts. A sled dog is conditioned by human blood injections (from Copper and Garry) to provide a human-immunity serum test, as in rabbits. The initial test of Connant is inconclusive as they realize that the test animal received both human and alien blood, meaning that either Doctor Copper or expedition Commander Garry is actually an alien. Assistant commander McReady takes over and deduces that all the other animals at the station, save the test dog, have already become imitations; all are killed by electrocution and their corpses burned. Everyone suspects each other by now but must stay together for safety, deciding who will take turns sleeping and standing watch. Tensions mount and some men begin to go mad thinking they are already the last human or wondering if they would even know if they weren't human any longer. Ultimately, Kinner, the cook, is murdered and accidentally revealed to be a Thing. McReady realizes that even small pieces of the creature will behave as independent organisms. He then uses this fact to test which men have been "converted" by taking blood samples from everyone and dipping a heated wire in the vial of blood. Each man's blood is tested, one at a time, and the donor is immediately killed if his blood recoils from the wire; fourteen men in all, including Connant and Garry, are revealed to be aliens. The remaining men go to test the isolated Blair and on the way see the first albatross of the Antarctic spring flying overhead; they shoot the bird to prevent a Thing from infecting it and flying to civilization. When they reach Blair's cabin they discover he is a Thing. They realize that it has been left to its own devices for a week, coming and going as it pleased as it is able to squeeze under doors by transforming itself. With the creatures inside the base destroyed, McReady and two others enter the cabin to kill the Thing that was once Blair. McReady forces it out into the snow and destroys it with a blowtorch. Afterwards the trio discover that the Thing was dangerously close to finishing the construction of an atomic-powered anti-gravity device that would have allowed it to escape to the outside world. 

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In 1986, MI6 agents James Bond and Alec Trevelyan infiltrate a Soviet chemical weapons facility in Arkhangelsk. While Trevelyan is caught and killed by Colonel Arkady Grigorovich Ourumov, the facility's commanding officer, Bond manages to destroy the site before escaping. While undergoing an assessment nine years later, after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Bond attempts to prevent Xenia Onatopp, a member of the Janus crime syndicate, from stealing a Eurocopter Tiger attack helicopter during a military demonstration in Monte Carlo, but is unable to prevent the theft. Returning to London, Bond oversees MI6 staff monitoring an incident in Severnaya, Siberia, after the stolen helicopter turns up at a radar facility there. An electromagnetic pulse blast suddenly hits the site, destroying it and Russian fighter aircraft, while knocking out all satellite systems in orbit above. The newly appointed M assigns Bond to investigate, after it is determined the blast came from a Soviet-era satellite armed with a nuclear electromagnetic pulse space-based weapon, codenamed "GoldenEye". Although Janus is suspected of initiating the attack, Bond suspects Ourumov, now a general, had involvement due to the weapon system requiring high-level military access. Travelling to Saint Petersburg, Bond is advised by his CIA contact Jack Wade to meet former KGB agent-turned-gangster Valentin Zukovsky and have him arrange a meeting with Janus. Escorted to the meeting by Onatopp, Bond discovers that Janus is led by Trevelyan, having faked his death at Arkhangelsk, and learns he is descended from the Cossacks who were repatriated to the Soviet Union after collaboration with the Axis powers during World War II. Learning that Trevelyan seeks revenge against Britain for betraying his people, Bond is sedated before he can kill him, and trapped in the stolen Tiger alongside Natalya Simonova, a survivor of the Severnaya attack. Despite escaping before the helicopter's destruction, the pair are captured by Russian soldiers and taken before Russian Minister of Defence Dimitri Mishkin for interrogation. The angry confrontation between the men leads Natalya to prove Ourumov's involvement in the use of GoldenEye, revealing that fellow programmer Boris Grishenko survived along with her, and is now working for Janus in operating a second GoldenEye satellite. Before Mishkin can act on the information, Ourumov arrives and kills him. Bond escapes, pursuing after him in a tank to rescue Natalya. The chase leads to a missile train used by Janus, in which Bond kills Ourumov, before escaping from the train with Natalya before Trevelyan destroys it. Bond and Natalya travel to Cuba, after Boris is traced to a location within the island's jungles. While flying over the area, the pair are shot down. Onatopp attacks them after they crash land, but Bond kills her during the fight. The pair soon uncover a hidden base beneath a large lake, concealing a satellite dish, and proceed to infiltrate it. Bond is captured while trying to rig explosives to destroy the base, and learns from Trevelyan that he intends to use GoldenEye to devastate London in order to conceal the theft of financial records from the Bank of England. While Natalya is captured as well, she manages to hack into the satellite and reprogram it to initiate atmospheric re-entry and thus destroy itself. When Boris loses his cool trying to undo her programming, Bond uses the moment to trigger a grenade, concealed in a pen, to allow him and Natalya to escape. To prevent Boris regaining control of the satellite, Bond proceeds to sabotage the dish's antennae by jamming its gears. Trevelyan tries to stop him, and the ensuing fight between the two culminates in him being dangled below the antennae. When asked who his death is for, Bond admits it is for himself, before letting Trevelyan plummet to his death. Natalya soon rescues him in a commandeered helicopter, moments before the antennae malfunctions and explodes, destroying the base and killing its personnel, with Trevelyan killed by falling debris, and Boris killed by ruptured liquid nitrogen canisters. After landing somewhere safe, the pair prepare to enjoy some solitude together, but are interrupted by the arrival of Wade and a team of U.S. Marines, who escort them to Guantanamo base. 

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Prior to the events of the first book, Artemis's father, Artemis Fowl I, imperils the family fortune by investing "a huge chunk of the Fowl fortune in establishing new shipping lanes" to Russia, following the breakdown of Communism there. The Russian Mafia retaliates by sinking a shipping vessel Artemis I was travelling on, the Fowl Star, leading to his disappearance, the loss of a substantial amount of the Fowl fortune, and the mental breakdown of his wife Angeline Fowl, Artemis's mother.Eoin Colfer (2001). Artemis Fowl. Artemis Fowl. Hyperion Books pp. 28–29, 19. . In Artemis Fowl, which is set two years after those events, the 12-year-old Artemis decides to regain the Fowl fortune by following leads on the Internet that refer to an underground world of fairies collectively called the People. Artemis manages to blackmail a member of the People into giving him what they call "the Book" which is like their Bible, holding all their secrets, customs, rules, and history. This leads him to ransom Lower Elements Police (LEP) Captain Holly Short for a portion of the People's gold. Artemis and Holly agree to a deal whereby Holly retains half the ransom fee, while Artemis gets one wish from Holly and gets to keep the other half of the gold. After recovering Holly, the LEP attempt to permanently eliminate Artemis by setting off a biological weapon, but are thwarted when Artemis discovers a way around their attack (something not even the People had been able to develop). In the sequel, The Arctic Incident, the 13-year-old Artemis learns that his father was only injured in the attack on his shipping vessel, and is being held hostage by the Russian Mafia. Artemis barters with the People to receive their aid in rescuing his father in exchange for assisting them in solving the mystery of who was behind a goblin rebellion. It is later revealed that Opal Koboi, a pixie criminal mastermind, and ex-LEP officer Briar Cudgeon are behind the plot. Their plan is thwarted, ending in Cudgeon's death and Koboi's arrest, and Artemis successfully recovers his father.Eoin Colfer (2002). Artemis Fowl and the Arctic Incident. Artemis Fowl. Hyperion Books. pp. 5, 8, 43, 68–69, 149–151, 253–254, 270. . In the third book, The Eternity Code, Artemis (in what he considers to be his last criminal act before his father recovers from his injuries) creates the C Cube, a mini super-computer based on the People's technology that is decades ahead of human technology. He plans to make a deal with Chicago technology businessman Jon Spiro over the Cube, but Spiro double-crosses Artemis, steals the Cube, and wounds Domovoi Butler in the process. Along with Holly Short and Foaly, Artemis succeeds in healing Butler and ensuring that Spiro does not discover the existence of the People through use of the C Cube. The C Cube is recovered, with the help of Foaly, Holly, Juliet (Butler's sister), and Mulch. But to gain the help of Foaly, Holly, and their Fairy technology, Artemis has to agree to Butler's, Juliet's and his own memories being wiped by the People, to avoid future misadventures. This happens at the end of the book.Eoin Colfer (2003). Artemis Fowl and the Eternity Code. Artemis Fowl. Hyperion Books. pp. 2, 10–13, 18–19, 44, 70–71, 91–92, 271, 302–304. . In the fourth book, The Opal Deception, Opal Koboi, who had been lying in an institution in a faked catatonic state, escapes with the help of pixie twins Mervall and Descant Brill, and begins plotting revenge against Julius Root, Holly Short, Foaly, and Artemis. Opal frames Holly for the murder of Julius Root and nearly terminates the now 14-year-old Artemis and Butler with a biological weapon. Holly rescues Artemis after being injured while escaping Opal's weapon. But Opal still seeks revenge on Holly and Artemis, so she traps them in an abandoned amusement park (comprising copies of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World plus four extra monuments determined by the People) with only hungry trolls for company. Meanwhile, Mulch Diggums has helped Butler regain his memories and together they save Holly and Artemis in the nick of time and also return Artemis's memory. With help from Artemis, Butler, and Mulch, Holly prevents Opal from achieving her goal to uncover the Fairy People to humans.Eoin Colfer (2005). Artemis Fowl and the Opal Deception. Artemis Fowl. Hyperion Books. pp. 4, 20–21, 26, 88, 92, 103–106, 311–312, 331. . In the fifth book, The Lost Colony, Artemis works with the People to recover a young kidnapped demon imp from the 12-year-old child prodigy Minerva Paradizo. The team succeed in finding and rescuing the imp-warlock, but Artemis and Holly Short must then work to restore the imp's home, a floating island lost in a space and time Limbo, which threatens to breach its way onto Earth. In the process, several significant changes occur within the characters' lives. Artemis receives a small amount of magical power during the trip to Limbo, and swaps an eye with Holly on the return trip. The pair finds that they have been transported nearly three years into their future. Finally, Artemis learns that in the ensuing time he has become the older brother to twins, Beckett and Myles Fowl.Eoin Colfer (2006). Artemis Fowl and the Lost Colony. Artemis Fowl. Hyperion Books. pp. 125–128, 224–227, 373, 375, 384. . In the sixth book, The Time Paradox, Artemis' mother Angeline Fowl becomes gravely ill with a rare fairy disease called Spelltropy. Artemis attempts to cure her with his remaining magic, but it only serves to worsen her condition. The only cure for Spelltropy is found in the brain fluid of the Silky Sifaka Lemur, the last of which Artemis sold in a business deal when he was ten years old, resulting in the extinction of the species. To get Holly to help him, Artemis falsely accuses her of exposing his mother to magic, which led to her developing the disease. Holly believes Artemis and, ridden with guilt, accompanies him to the past to rescue the last lemur from his younger self. After several misadventures, Artemis recovers the lemur but learns that his mother's illness was a ruse plotted by Opal Koboi, who wanted the lemur's brain fluid to increase her own magical powers. Artemis ruins Opal's plans by bringing his ten-year-old self into the present and fooling Opal, saving his mother in the process. Opal flees, but returns again as Artemis appears to take the lemur and fly off the manor's grounds in his Cessna. She chases him, following the thermal read of the lemur and slowly destroying the plane until it crashes on the shoreline. At the crash site, the two stand off until she discovers that the lemur is actually only a decoy, fitted with a thermal read to trick Opal. Before she can further injure Artemis, he shoots the boulder she's on, and it is shown that it was in fact the shell of a kraken she stood on, built up with gases that exploded with the pressure of Artemis's shot. The LEP team later informs Artemis that Opal's body was not recovered from the rubble. As a result of Opal meddling with her mind, Angeline Fowl learns of Artemis' contact with the People, and she asks Artemis to tell her the truth. Artemis' 10-year-old self has his mind wiped by Nº1, but retains a brief memory of the existence of fairies,Eoin Colfer(2006). Artemis Fowl and the Lost Colony. Artemis Fowl. Hyperion Books. pp. 125–128, 224–227, 373, 375, 384. . which spurs him to research them, ultimately leading to the events of the first book. In the seventh book, The Atlantis Complex, Artemis contracts a mental disease called Atlantis Complex disease, similar to OCD, and now has an alter- ego named Orion, who is in love with Holly Short, and has a strange fascination with bivouacking. Due to the disease, Artemis finds himself obsessed with the number 5 and fearing the number 4 (which in Chinese sounds like the word for death). The disease worsens throughout the novel, leading to his distrust of close friends. A neutrino shock from Holly Short frees Artemis' alter-ego Orion but he comes back after being knocked out by a buzz baton blow from Holly. He later undergoes Atlantis Complex Disease treatment by the fairies, curing him and restoring his former self. In the eighth book, The Last Guardian, Artemis must save humankind by stopping the crazed pixie Opal Koboi. Opal kills her younger self (who followed Artemis and Holly to the present in the sixth book) to gain enough black magic to open a magical gate, which has been under the Fowl Manor for a millennium, and so release the Berserkers (ancient fairy warriors). Then Artemis must fight his brothers, who have been taken over by the Berserker souls. He sacrifices himself at the conclusion of the book to trigger an ancient spell that disperses Opal and her various fairy spirits, but since his spirit was human (apart from some traces of fairy magic from Holly's borrowed eye), his essence endures at the location of the spell long enough for Holly and Foaly to clone a new body for him and transfer his soul into it. Although the process leaves him with missing memories, the book ends with Butler, Holly and Foaly immediately beginning work to restore them. In The Fowl Twins—the first of a series of novels focusing on Artemis's younger twin brothers Beckett and Myles—it is mentioned that Artemis is currently six months into a five-year mission to Mars in a wind-up rocket he built in the family barn. He is accompanied by Butler, but has left his younger brothers Beckett and Myles under the 'guardianship' of NANNI, an artificial intelligence he created, whose voice and mannerisms were based on Holly Short. Holly herself has now been promoted to Commodore and appears at the end of the novel, the narrative observing that a combined grin and grimace is a traditional expression for anyone who spends prolonged time with the Fowls. 

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Merlin escapes from the crystal cave, and decides to gain leverage over Luke by rescuing his mother from the Keep of the Four Worlds. He spars with the sorcerer who now controls the keep, and who seems to know him. He escapes with the petrified Jasra, and returns to Amber where an unusual Trump summoning imprisons him in the Mad Hatter's tea party. 

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Louis Holland arrives in Boston to find that a minor earthquake in Ipswich has killed his eccentric grandmother, triggering a struggle between him, his sister Eileen, and his mother Melanie over the disposition of a $22 million inheritance. During a visit to the beach, Louis meets Dr. Reneé Seitchek, a Harvard seismologist who believes she has discovered the cause of subsequent earthquakes in Peabody. Louis, Reneé, and the Hollands' affairs become entangled with the petrochemical and weapons company Sweeting-Aldren, as well as a pro-life activist commune called the Church of Action in Christ, headed by Reverend Philip Stites. 

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Merlin realises that Wonderland, where he and Luke are trapped, is an LSD-induced hallucination made real by Luke's powers over shadow. As a Fire Angel (a vicious creature from Chaos) pursues them, he administers medicine to Luke. The Fire Angel is weakened in a fight with the Jabberwock and Merlin is able to finish it off with the vorpal sword. He leaves Luke to sober up. He seeks his stepbrother Mandor, who thinks that their half-brother Jurt may be trying to kill Merlin in order to take the throne of Chaos. Fiona contacts them, and they investigate a shadow-storm. Merlin and Mandor return to Amber, and then along with Jasra they wrest the Keep of the Four worlds from Jurt and the sorcerer, Mask. They learn that Jurt has (at least partially) turned himself into a living Trump, as Brand did, and that the sorcerer Mask is in fact Merlin's ex-girlfriend Julia. 

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The novel is divided into three sections, each of which comprises chapters with different narrators. Unlike Trainspotting which had more narrational diversity, Porno is reduced to just five narrators: Sick Boy, Renton, Spud, Begbie and Nikki. Another difference from the format of Trainspotting is that each character has a defined chapter heading depending on what chapter it is. For instance, Sick Boy's chapters all begin with "Scam..." and then a number in front of a "#". Renton's all begin with "Whores of Amsterdam Pt..." Spud's chapters are just narrative, Begbie's are in capitals, and Nikki's are quotes from the chapter, for example "...A SIMON DAVID WILLIAMSON PRODUCTION...". Each narrator is associated with a distinctive prose style. Renton, Sick Boy, and Nikki's chapters are written almost entirely in "standard" English while Begbie and Spud's chapters are in Scots. For example, in Chapter 25, Spud narrates, "So ah'm downcast git intae the library, thinkin tae masel" ("So I'm downcast when I get into the library thinking to myself"). He also repeats certain words when talking such as "catboy" or "cat", "likes" or "likesay", and "ken?" Begbie often swears a lot during his chapters. Sick Boy's returning grandiose nature is featured in imagined interviews with John Gibson of the Evening News and Alex McLeish. 

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Merlin finds himself summoned back to the land where he was raised, the Courts of Chaos. He finds himself enmeshed in political intrigues and schemes, and himself much closer to the crown than he believed possible, or wants. He encounters a variety of old acquaintances, and finds himself fighting with both his wits and his magic to avoid the snares laid for him, to help his friends, and to discover his father's fate. Category:The Chronicles of Amber books Category:American fantasy novels Category:1991 American novels Category:1991 fantasy novels Category:William Morrow and Company books 

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Two bedraggled peasants, Tahei and Matashichi, intend to join the feudal Yamana clan in battle, but having arrived too late, are taken for soldiers of the defeated Akizuki clan, and forced to bury the dead. After quarreling and splitting up, the two are both again captured separately and forced to dig for gold in the Akizuki castle with other prisoners. After a prisoner uprising, Tahei and Matashichi escape. Near a river they find gold marked with the crescent of the Akizuki clan. Planning to evade the Yamana soldiers who are preventing refugees and defeated Akizuki clansmen from crossing the frontier to Hayakawa, the peasants encounter a mysterious man who takes them to a hidden Akizuki fortress. Unbeknownst to them, the man is a general of the defeated Akizuki clan, Makabe Rokurōta. Although Rokurōta was planning on killing the peasants, on hearing their plan, he decides it is so ingenious, he will let them live. They will travel to Yamana itself and then pass into Hayakawa through a different border. Rokurōta decides, without revealing anything to the peasants, to move the Akizuki Princess Yuki to Hayakawa, whose lord is an ally of the Akizuki clan. Rokurōta escorts Princess Yuki and what remains of her family's gold to Hayakawa, with Matashichi and Tahei traveling with them. In order to keep her identity secret, Yuki poses as a mute so that she doesn't inadvertently speak in the usual mode characteristic of a noblewoman. During their travels, the peasants impede their progress and sometimes try to seize the gold. They are later joined by a farmer’s daughter, whom they acquire from an innkeeper. They avoid being captured on one occasion by Rokurōta killing four soldiers of a Yamana patrol, including two soldiers Rokurōta has to pursue on horseback. However, Rokurōta ends up in a Yamana camp, where the general in charge is Rokurōta's friendly rival, Hyoe Tadokoro. Tadokoro states that he is sorry he didn't face Rokurōta in battle and decides to have a lance duel, which Rokurōta wins, but Rokurōta refuses to kill Tadokoro. Rokurōta tells Tadokoro they'll meet again and then leaves the camp on horseback to get back to the Princess. Eventually, they are captured by Yamana soldiers close to a post on the Hayakawa border and held prisoner to be executed. In the confusion, Matashichi and Tahei are able to hide and avoid being taken prisoner. Tadokoro comes to identify the prisoners before the soldiers take them to be executed. Tadokoro shows a large face scar and explains it is a result of a beating ordered by the Yamana lord for losing the duel with Rokurōta. The Princess proclaims that, even facing death, she has enjoyed the trip and getting to know humanity's ugliness and beauty closely. The next day as the soldiers start marching the prisoners to be executed, Tadokoro suddenly defects to the Akizuki side with the Princess, Rokurōta and the farmer's daughter. The group manages to escape along with the horses carrying the gold. After the Princess and Rokurōta's escape, Matashichi and Tahei stumble upon the gold which is carried by the horses, but are then arrested by Hayakawa soldiers. The soldiers take the peasants to see the general, whereupon Rokurōta explains Yuki's true identity, and states that all of the gold will be used to restore her family's domain. The peasants are then released, taking a single ryō. Finally, Tahei gives this to Matashichi to protect; but Matashichi allows Tahei to keep it. 

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Set in the 1930s, The Last Tycoon traces the life of Hollywood studio manager Monroe Stahr, clearly based on Irving Thalberg (head of the film company Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer), whom Fitzgerald had encountered several times. The novel begins with young NYC college student Cecelia Brady (first- person narrator), the daughter of influential Hollywood producer Pat Brady, preparing to fly home to Los Angeles. At the airport, she is surprised to meet an old friend of her father, author Wylie White. White is accompanied by a failed producer introduced as Mr. Schwartz. Due to complications during the flight, they make a forced landing in Nashville, Tennessee. The threesome decide on a spontaneous trip to the historic estate of former President Andrew Jackson, but on arrival the attraction is closed. Wylie then proceeds to flirt shamelessly with Cecelia while Mr. Schwartz is fast asleep. When Schwartz awakens, he informs them that he has changed his mind and will not travel to Los Angeles with them. He asks Wylie to deliver a message to a friend, which he gladly accepts. The next day, Wylie and Cecelia learn that Schwartz committed suicide right after they left Nashville. Cecelia realises that the message Schwarz gave to Wylie was in fact for Monroe Stahr, her father's business partner. She has had a crush on Monroe for many years. Cecelia arrives at her father's film studio to pick him up for a birthday party. Due to an unexpected minor earthquake, Cecelia, her father, and his companions all end up in Stahr's office. A water pipe bursts and floods the set. Stahr beholds two women desperately clinging to the head of a statue – finding one of them to be the spitting image of his late wife. The day after, Stahr asks his secretary to identify the girls for him. She presents him with a phone number which he immediately uses to arrange a meeting with one of the girls. Unfortunately, it is not the girl he wished to see; she does not resemble his wife at all. Stahr gives her a ride home, where she insists that he come in and meet her friend (the young Irish-born Kathleen Moore). As soon as Moore opens the front door, Stahr recognises her to be the woman he had seen the other night. Kathleen withstands his advances to her and even refuses to tell him her name. It is only when Stahr happens to meet her again at a party that he can convince her to go out and have a cup of coffee with him. He drives her to the building site of his new house in Santa Monica. Kathleen seems reluctant to be with Stahr, but she still ends up having sex with him. A short time afterwards, Stahr receives a letter in which Kathleen confesses to have been engaged to another man for quite some time. She has now decided to marry him despite having fallen in love with Stahr. Stahr asks Cecelia to arrange for a meeting with a suspected communist who wants to organise a labour union within the film studio. Stahr and Cecelia meet the man over supper where Stahr gets drunk and gets involved in a violent confrontation. Cecelia takes care of him and they grow closer. Cecelia's father, however, becomes more and more unhappy with Stahr as a business partner and has wanted to get rid of him for a long while. He could not approve less of his daughter's fancying him. Brady knows of Stahr's continued affair with the now-married Kathleen and tries to blackmail him into leaving the company. As he fails to achieve his goal via blackmail, he does not even shy away from hiring a professional killer. Stahr survives, and, in retaliation, also appoints a hit man to have Brady killed. Unlike Brady's, Stahr's conscience starts to trouble in. But, just as he contemplates calling the execution off, his plane crashes on its way back to New York City. The contract killer finishes his job unhindered and leaves Cecelia both without a father and without a lover – the two men who meant the world to her. 

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Spunky shopgirl Betty Lou Spence (Clara Bow) has a crush on her handsome employer, Cyrus Waltham, Jr. (Antonio Moreno), the new manager of and heir to the "world's largest store". However, they belong to different social classes and he is already romantically linked to blonde socialite Adela Van Norman (Jacqueline Gadsden). But Cyrus's silly friend Monty (William Austin) notices Betty, and she uses him to get closer to Cyrus. When Betty finally gets Cyrus's attention, she convinces him to take her on a date to Coney Island, where he is introduced to the proletarian pleasures of roller coasters and hot dogs and has a wonderful time. At the end of the evening, he tries to kiss her. She slaps his face and hurries out of his car and into her flat, but then peeks out her window at him as he is leaving. The next day, meddling welfare workers are trying to take away the baby of Betty's sickly roommate Molly (Priscilla Bonner). To protect her friend, Betty bravely claims that the baby is in fact hers. Unfortunately, this is overheard by Monty, who tells Cyrus. Although he is in love with her, Cyrus offers her an "arrangement" that includes everything but marriage. Shocked and humiliated, Betty Lou refuses. She soon strives to forget the whole ordeal ever occurred, forgetting Cyrus for the time being. When she learns from Monty about Cyrus's misunderstanding, she fumes and vows to teach her former beau a lesson. When Cyrus hosts a yachting excursion, Betty Lou makes Monty take her along, masquerading as "Miss Van Cortland". Cyrus at first wants to remove her from the ship, but he cannot long resist Betty Lou's it factor; he eventually corners her and proposes marriage, but she gets him back, by telling him that she'd "rather marry his office boy", which accomplishes her goal, but breaks her heart. He then learns the truth about the baby and leaves Monty at the yacht's helm to find her. Monty crashes the yacht into a fishing boat, tossing both Betty Lou and Adela into the water. Betty Lou saves Adela, punching her in the face when she panics and threatens to drown them both. At the end of the film, she and Cyrus reconcile on the anchor of the yacht, with the first two letters of the ship's name, Itola, between them. Monty and Adela are upset at losing their friends, but it is implied they pursue a relationship with each other as the film ends. It (1927 lobby card, Clara Bow - 1).jpg|Clara Bow as Betty Lou Spence It (1927 lobby card, Clara Bow - 2).jpg|Bow It (1927 lobby card, Bow & Moreno).jpg|Bow and Antonio Moreno as Cyrus Waltham, Jr. It (1927 lobby card, Clara Bow - 3).jpg|Bow 

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The series takes place in the year 2356 A.D. around 189 years after a worldwide catastrophe had wiped out 10% of Earth's population. To keep track on all space activities, mankind has built numerous colossal space stations called "foundations" all across the Solar System. After passing the Space Academy's entrance exams, Shima Katase embarks to the Earth-based foundation Stellvia to fulfill her dreams of seeing the galaxy and to prevent anymore interstellar catastrophes from destroying Earth, once and for all. 

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The book opens with Amazing Maurice (a sentient cat), a group of talking rats (the Clan), and the human boy Keith travelling in a mail coach to a small town called Bad Blintz. The group plans to enact a scheme they have used many times before, where in the rats pretend to infest the town and Keith poses as a rat piper to lead the "vermin" away for a small sum of cash. Although Maurice sees nothing wrong with this hustling business, the rats find it immoral, and convince Maurice that this town will be the last one they rob. Upon arriving in town, the group discovers that the people are convinced of a massive rat infestation, and have spent much of their savings on two rat catchers. Despite their efforts, food continues to disappear from the town. As the rats move into the town's underground, they discover an overwhelmingly large number of rat traps, but no live keekees (rats who can't talk or think). Aboveground, Maurice makes similar observations, including that many of the rat tails the rat catchers display as proof of their successful hunting are in fact shoelaces. Maurice and Keith meet the mayor's daughter Malicia and introduce her to the talking rats. Malicia believes that the rat catchers are up to something and so she, Maurice, and Keith break into the rat catchers' hut. They discover a great deal of food stolen by the men and large cages when the local keekees are being bred for coursing. The rat catchers return and lock up the humans, taking away the rat leader Hamnpork who had met up with them. Maurice hides and feels a voice trying to enter his mind, inciting a great sense of fear. The rats of the Clan feel it too, and many become so afraid that they all but forget how to think and reason. Dangerous Beans, the rats' spiritual leader, is crushed by the realization that the rats are just mindless animals at heart, and leaves with his assistant Peaches. Darktan, the rats' trap expert, leads a group to rescue Hamnpork, and succeeds after nearly dying in a trap. Hamnpork dies of injuries sustained while fighting in the rat coursing pit, and Darktan reluctantly assumes control of the Clan. Malicia and Keith, after freeing themselves, trick the rat catchers into admitting their crimes. The rat catchers have created a powerful rat king named Spider, which is the source of the mysterious voice that has been plaguing the rats and Maurice. Using its mental control over the rat catchers, Spider plans to wage war on the humans that created it. It sends the rats it controls to attack Maurice, Peaches, and Dangerous Beans. However, Maurice (so terrified that he stops thinking and acts instinctively) pounces on the rat king and destroys it. Maurice emerges from Spider's chamber carrying the body of Dangerous Beans. When he is safely out, he collapses and dies. In ghostly form, he sees the Bone Rat coming for Dangerous Beans and makes a deal with the reoccurring personality in Discworld, Death – two of his remaining lives in exchange for both his life and the albino rat's. The rats corral all the keekees and block their ears. When the real rat piper arrives in town, Keith challenges him to a duel. The piper plays his "magic" rat pipe but none of the rats come out. Keith plays on a trombone and Sardines (an intelligent rat) emerges and dances for the crowd. Keith is proclaimed the winner, and leads the keekees out of town with the piper. After the piper leaves, the Clan rats emerge from hiding and tell the humans about the rat catchers' duplicity. The humans bargain with the rats: if the Clan will keep the keekees out of the town, the rats may stay and live as though they were just smaller humans. Keith decides to stay behind as Bad Blintz's ceremonial rat piper, while Maurice moves on to find a new scheme. 

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After crashing a party and finding himself passed out in the bathtub, culinary school student Jack Tripper meets Janet Wood, a florist, and Chrissy Snow, a secretary, in need of a new roommate to replace their departing roommate Eleanor. Having only been able to afford to live at the YMCA, Jack quickly accepts the offer to move in with the duo. However, due to overbearing landlord Stanley Roper's intolerance for co-ed living situations, even in a multi-bedroom apartment, Jack is allowed to move in only after Janet tells Mr. Roper that Jack is gay. Although Mrs. Roper figures out Jack is straight in the second episode, she trusts him with the girls and does not tell her husband, who tolerates, but mocks him. Frequently siding with the three roommates instead of her husband, Mrs. Roper's bond with the roommates grows until the eventual spin-off The Ropers. Jack continues the charade when new building manager Ralph Furley takes over the apartment complex because Mr. Furley insists that his hard-nosed brother Bart (the building's new owner) would also never tolerate such living situations. Jack eventually meets his love interest Vicky Bradford, which leads into Three's a Crowd. 

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The film tells the story of six mental cases, trying to get rid of society's norms and values by kidnapping Gerard van Dongen, a well-known TV host. During an improvised TV show, the terrorists confront this Van Dongen with their darkest thoughts and emotions, resulting in violent excesses and extreme sexual behaviour. 

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Jim Douglas is a miserable race car driver, reduced to competing in demolition derby races against drivers half his age. Jim lives in an old fire house overlooking San Francisco Bay with his friend and mechanic, Tennessee Steinmetz, a jolly Brooklynite who constantly extols the virtues of spiritual enlightenment, having spent time amongst Buddhist monks in Tibet, and builds "art" from car parts. After yet another race ends in a crash (and Tennessee turns his Edsel into a sculpture), Jim finds himself without a car and heads into town in search of some cheap wheels. He is enticed into an upmarket European car showroom after setting eyes on an attractive sales assistant and mechanic, Carole Bennett. Jim witnesses the dealership's British owner, Peter Thorndyke, being unnecessarily abusive towards a white Volkswagen Beetle that rolls into the showroom, and defends the car's honor, much to Thorndyke's displeasure. The following morning, Jim is shocked to find that the car is parked outside his house and that Thorndyke is pressing charges for grand theft. A heated argument between Jim and Thorndyke is settled when Carole persuades Thorndyke to drop the charges if Jim purchases the car on a system of monthly payments. Jim soon finds that the car is prone to going completely out of his control and believes Thorndyke has conned him. Tennessee, however, believes certain inanimate objects to have hearts and minds of their own and tries to befriend the car, naming it Herbie. Jim's feelings about his new acquisition soon improve when it appears that Herbie is intent on bringing him and Carole together. He also discovers Herbie to have an incredible turn of speed for a car of his size and decides to take him racing. After watching Jim and Herbie win their first race together, Thorndyke, himself a major force on the local racing scene, offers to cancel the remaining payments Jim owes on Herbie if Jim can win a race that they will both be competing in at Riverside later that month. Jim accepts, and despite Thorndyke's underhanded tactics, he and Herbie take the victory. Over the next few months, they go on to become the toast of the racing circuit, while Thorndyke suffers increasingly humiliating defeats. Thorndyke finally loses his composure and persuades Carole to take Jim out on a date while he sneaks round to Jim's house. After Tennessee gets drunk on his own Irish coffee recipe, Thorndyke proceeds to tip the remainder of the alcoholic coffee and whipped cream into Herbie's gas tank. At the following day's race, an apparently hungover Herbie shudders to a halt and backfires while Thorndyke blasts to victory. However, as the crowd admires Thorndyke's victory, Herbie blows some whipped cream out of his exhaust pipe, covering Thorndyke. That evening, Carole comes to Jim's house to help Tennessee repair Herbie. Carole then hears the whole truth about Herbie having a mind of his own and having a great speed for winning races instead of Jim. Jim returns home in a brand new Lamborghini 400GT, and has agreed to sell Herbie to Thorndyke to pay the remaining installments that he owes on it. Jim states his need for a "big and strong car" to drive in the upcoming El Dorado road race, but finds no sympathy from Tennessee or Carole. Carole also angrily confronts Jim to make him realize that he did not care about Herbie, and that he was not winning any of the races he participated in after hearing what Tennessee said to her, and she believed him. Jim also doesn't get sympathy from Herbie who proceeds to damage the Lamborghini, and this angers Jim, causing him to damage Herbie with a shovel. Tennessee tries to stop Jim and says that Herbie was jealous, to which Jim agrees as he gets the credit for winning races. This finally makes Jim realise that Herbie has a mind of his own. By the time Thorndyke arrives to collect Herbie, Jim refuses the money from him and then sees that Herbie has run away. Jim sets off into the night hoping to find Herbie and make amends before the car is seized by Thorndyke's goons. After narrowly escaping being torn apart in Thorndyke's workshop, and a destructive spree through Chinatown, during the Chinese New Year's parade, Herbie is about to launch himself off the Golden Gate Bridge when Jim reaches him. In his attempt to stop Herbie from driving off the bridge, Jim nearly falls into the water. Herbie pulls Jim back to safety after seeing that it is Jim and that he does care about him, but is then impounded by the San Francisco Police Department. There, Tang Wu, (Benson Fong) a Chinese businessman whose store was damaged during Herbie's rampage, demands compensation that Jim can no longer afford. Using the Chinese language he had learned while in Tibet, Tennessee tries to reason with Wu, and learns that he is a huge racing fan who knows all about Jim and Herbie's exploits. Wu is willing to drop the charges in exchange for becoming Herbie's new owner. Jim agrees to this, as long as Wu allows him to race the car in the El Dorado. If Jim wins, Wu will be able to keep the prize money, but will then be required to sell Herbie back for one dollar. Wu replies to this proposal in clear English: "Now you speak my language." Dean Jones in The Love Bug The El Dorado runs through the Sierra Nevada mountains from Yosemite Valley to Virginia City and back. Before the start of the race, Thorndyke persuades Wu to make a wager with him on its outcome. Thorndyke (with his assistant Havershaw acting as co-driver) initiates every trick known to man to ensure that he and his "Thorndyke Special" (in actuality an Apollo GT) are leading at end of the first leg of the race. As a result of Thorndyke's shenanigans, Jim (with Carole and Tennessee as co-drivers) limps home last with Herbie missing two wheels and having to use a wagon wheel to get to the finish line. Despite Tennessee's best efforts, it looks as if Herbie will be unable to start the return leg of the race the following morning. Thorndyke then arrives and claims that this makes him the new owner of the car. Wu regretfully tells Jim of the wager and that in accordance with its terms this is true. Thorndyke, thinking he is Herbie's new owner, gloats to Jim about what he is going to do to Herbie and kicks Herbie's front fender, and punches Jim, but Herbie then unexpectedly lurches into life and chases Thorndyke from the scene, showing that he is more than willing to race on. Thanks to some ingenious shortcuts, Jim is able to make up for lost time in the second leg and is neck and neck with Thorndyke as they approach the finish line. In the ensuing dogfight, Herbie's body begins to crack between the front an rear seats. Tennessee attempts to repair these on the fly with a welder, but the cracks appear faster than he can mend them and on the final dash to the finish line, Herbie splits in two. The back half (carrying Tennessee and the engine) crosses the line just ahead of Thorndyke, while the front (carrying Jim and Carole) rolls over the line just behind, meaning Herbie takes both first and third place. In accordance with the terms of the wager, Wu takes over Thorndyke's car dealership (hiring Tennessee as his assistant), while Thorndyke and Havershaw are relegated to lowly mechanics. Meanwhile, a fully repaired Herbie chauffeurs the newlywed Jim and Carole away on their honeymoon. 

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Rosalie Kunoth-Monks, who played the title roleRobert Tudawali, appeared as Marbuck in Jedda Jedda is an Aboriginal girl born on a cattle station in the Northern Territory of Australia. After her mother dies giving birth to her, the child is brought to Sarah McMann, the wife of the station boss. Sarah has recently lost her own newborn to illness. She at first intends to give the baby to one of the Aboriginal women who work on the station, but then raises Jedda as her own, teaching her European ways and separating her from other Aborigines. Jedda wants to learn about her own culture, but is forbidden by Sarah. When Jedda grows into a young woman, she becomes curious about an Aboriginal man from the bush named Marbuck. This tall stranger arouses strong feelings in her. She is lured to his camp one night by a song. Marbuck abducts her and sets off back to his tribal land, through crocodile-infested swamps. Joe, a half-caste stockman in love with Jedda, tracks the two for several days. They travel across high, rocky country, and down a river until Marbuck reaches his tribe. The tribal council declares that Marbuck has committed a serious crime by bringing Jedda to them, because she is not of the right skin group. They sing his death song as punishment. Marbuck defies the elders and takes Jedda into an area of steep cliffs and canyons, taboo lands. Driven insane by the death song, he pulls Jedda with him over a tall cliff, and both perish. Joe, the narrator, says her spirit has joined "the great mother of the world, in the dreaming time of tomorrow." 

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